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“No better day to ride the D (train) than election day,” posted Tom Steyer yesterday morning at 11:12 a.m. on X.

The problem isn’t that Steyer talked about transit on election day. The problem is that he waited until election day. California voters consistently support transit funding at the ballot box, yet no major candidate in the governor’s race made transit a centerpiece of their campaign.

In a crowded Democratic primary where candidates struggled to distinguish themselves from one another, a bold, unapologetic vision for better buses, trains, and public transportation could have provided exactly the contrast voters were looking for. Instead, candidates largely ceded the issue and spent the campaign talking about gas prices, taxes, and housing, leaving millions of transit riders without a champion in the race.

The impromptu election-day interview Steyer gave to Torched editor Alissa Walker may end up being the most substantive transit discussion of the entire governor’s race.

It almost certainly won’t be enough to save his campaign. As of election night, Steyer was running a distant third in California’s top-two primary. More mail ballots remain to be counted, but a deficit of nearly eight percentage points is a difficult gap to close.

Still, the election offered another reminder that transit remains a politically potent issue when candidates choose to talk about it.

Breaking: California Voters Back Transit Measure

Voters in Sonoma and Marin counties overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure extending the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit (SMART) district’s quarter-cent sales tax for another 30 years. For more, visit, “Election Result Underscores Message: Bay Area Wants Car Dependence to End” at Streetsblog San Francisco.

The tax, first approved in 2008 and set to expire in 2029, generates roughly $51 million annually and serves as the backbone of SMART’s operating budget. Early returns showed support hovering around 70 percent in both Marin and Sonoma Counties, well above the simple majority needed for passage.

The victory comes as Bay Area leaders prepare for larger transit funding fights this fall. Regional measures for the November ballot to support both transit regionally, and SF Muni in particular, gathered nearly twice the signatures required.

As we’ve written before, supporting transit appears to be a politically popular position.

Many Tax Measures Didn’t Pass

That lesson becomes even clearer when viewed alongside the broader election results.

With people’s budgets stretched thin by inflation, it was overall a bad night for tax and fee measures throughout California, demonstrating that the passage of Measure B in the Bay was a true victory for transit.

Just miles away in the East Bay, Oakland voters rejected a parcel tax that would have funded general services. In San Diego, a measure to tax vacant homes is also failing. Funds from that tax would also go to the general fund. Throughout Monterey County, smaller municipalities were also rejecting non-transit taxes. Heck, even San Francisco rejected a CEO Tax.

In Los Angeles County, voters rejected a new tax to fund emergency services.

In the City of Los Angeles, a new tax on hotel occupancy also failed. Two measures that clarified that taxes on cannabis products applies to all sellers of said products and that hotel/transient taxes apply to all short-term rentals did pass.

Taken together, the results suggest that voters were generally skeptical of new taxes. That’s what makes the SMART victory stand out.

Candidates looking for a way to stand out in future statewide races might want to take note. If transit is going to be part of a campaign message, it should be embraced early and often. That’s how to stand out in a crowded field.

New research: It’s time to treat ultra-processed foods like tobacco Ketura Persellin June 3, 2026

A special health journal issue on ultra-processed food, or UPF, calls for bold policy action to address the growing public health crisis – and that efforts focused solely on personal responsibility are likely to fail.

The collection of 17 studies and editorials, just published in the American Journal of Public Health, brings together breaking research on the health harms of UPF.

The issue also sheds light on the tobacco industry’s lasting negative impact on today’s food landscape. It also shows why it might be time to start treating UPF with the same public health concern as tobacco, and shares policy and legal strategies that can help.

Health harms of UPF keep piling up

These studies add to a robust body of evidence linking UPF to chronic diseases like cancer, depression, Type 2 diabetes, and heart, kidney and gastrointestinal diseases.

One study provides new evidence that UPF could contribute to cognitive decline in older adults. It found that people who consumed the highest amount of UPF were at 58% higher risk of dementia, compared to those who consumed the lowest amount of UPF.

Researchers also call out the threats to public health from the UPF industry, which drives global plastic pollution, environmental degradation and greenhouse gas emissions. 

Get your free guide: EWG's Guide to Food Additives Tobacco research reshaped the U.S. food system

Multiple studies published in the special issue reviewed internal tobacco industry documents to reveal how it transformed the U.S. food system – for the worse.

In the 1980s, major tobacco companies like R.J. Reynolds and Philip Morris acquired food and beverage giants like Kraft, Del Monte and Nabisco, bringing their research and technology with them to develop harmful UPF.

The new studies show that the tobacco industry used consumer research on cigarettes to help with developing new ultra-processed products for kids, including Lunchables. Food companies created “king size” and “light” versions of snack foods, mimicking “king size” and “slim” cigarettes.

The tobacco industry also revived its playbook for fighting public health protections. 

When experts began to sound the alarm about the health risks of smoking, the tobacco industry responded with what would become its signature script: deny harm, manufacture uncertainty with biased research and use political influence to prevent government action.

Some of the biggest producers of UPF are now using these tactics in seeking to block state food chemical laws.

It’s not you – it’s the UPF

An unhealthy diet is often framed as a personal failure. But in fact, many structural factors impact our ability to eat well. 

The journal issue authors argue that ultra-processed foods are prominent in our diets because they are widely available, relatively affordable and highly palatable.

UPF make up an estimated 73% of the U.S. food supply, and a new study from the special issue finds our food landscape is not changing for the better. During the past 20 years, the growth of restaurants and fast-food locations in so-called “food swamps” has far outpaced the growth of healthy grocery retailers.

Ultra-processed foods also tend to be more affordable than less processed alternatives. As a result, avoiding UPF may take more time, money and careful planning. These expectations are unrealistic, if not impossible, for households already experiencing food insecurity or concerned about the cost of groceries.

As several authors write, some UPF should be considered addictive. One study found that 90% of food with addictive potential were ultra-processed, and new polling shows that 70% of people believe UPF are addictive. These qualities likely stem from the “consumer-driven product development” the tobacco industry used to create foods with maximum pleasure and appeal. 

Policies for less processed food

Based on the parallels between UPF and tobacco, the path forward is policy – not personal responsibility.

The study authors recommend a range of interventions, including:

• A clear and scientifically supported federal definition of UPF, based on the NOVA classification system, that works for practical policy applications
• Front-of-pack labeling requirements and marketing restrictions, with a focus on child-targeted marketing
• Legal action by state attorneys general against food companies on behalf of the public, with settlement funds directed to health initiatives
• Institutional procurement and other policies that limit UPF and provide more minimally processed foods in places like schools.

Meaningful progress may be possible. A national survey featured in the special journal issue found broad bipartisan public support for a range of governmental and legal interventions to address the health harms of UPF.

What you can do now

Solving our UPF problem requires large, systemic change. In the meantime, people still need help shopping for their families.

Check ingredient lists and nutrition facts, usually found on the back of food packages. Look for more whole foods and avoid longer lists of additives and chemicals you probably wouldn’t find in a home kitchen.

For extra help, take a look at EWG’s Food Scores, which provides ratings for more than 150,000 foods and drinks based on nutrition, ingredients and processing. Food Scores also flags unhealthy UPF and can help with identifying healthier alternatives. 

Shoppers on the go can also use EWG’s Healthy Living app.

Finally, follow Fed UP! – a new coalition of scientists, researchers and public health advocates dedicated to exposing the harms of UPF and showing how our food system shapes our health.

Areas of Focus Ultra-Processed Foods Authors Sarah Reinhardt, MPH, RDN June 3, 2026

This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler

I’ve long been struck by how hard it is to predict the evolution of our energy system, even a few years in advance, never mind 25 or 30 years. I still remember the “peak oil” craze in the mid 2000s, when people were telling me the end of oil was nigh. It sounded convincing right up until it turned out to be wrong.

In this post, let me show you how bad previous predictions have been for the electricity sector.

evolution of our energy system in 6 charts

Each plot below shows annual predictions of how a particular source of electricity will evolve as well as what actually happened. The data come from the Energy Information Administration and cover the U.S. electricity sector.

We’ll start with coal. In the first plot, the black line shows actual U.S. coal-fired electricity generation. The colored lines are predictions made each year since 2008.

In 2008, coal was expected to produce increasing amounts of electricity into the future. Instead, it immediately started to decline and it took until 2023 before the EIA began to predict a long-term decline in coal, despite the fact that coal had been declining for 15 years.

Natural gas, by contrast, has generated an increasing share of U.S. electricity. This is largely due to the tidal wave of cheap natural gas from fracking. The predictions, on the other hand, did not anticipate this.

The takeaway here is that predicting the evolution of our energy system is not just hard in the long run, e.g., thirty years from now, but it’s hard even in the short run.

If we combine coal and gas, the forecasts look better. This reflects the fact that natural gas was replacing coal, so that the overestimate for coal was cancelled to some extent by the underestimate for natural gas.

But even for the combined category, the forecasts vary widely.

Here’s solar (including both utility and residential solar):

And here’s wind:

For both energy sources, predictions before 2015 were really bad.

Across all energy sources, the 2023 and 2025 forecasts differ sharply from the 2026 forecast. The predictions made for 2023/2025 assume Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, while 2026 predictions assume the reversal of those policies.

The difference between 2023/2025 and 2026 is an estimate of the role that politics plays in the future evolution of our electricity sector. Because we cannot confidently predict who will win future elections or what their policies will be, this is a very good reason why it’s so hard to predict the future of our energy system.

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the cost of energy

Why is it so hard to predict the energy mix in our electricity system? One big reason is that it is hard to predict the future rate of innovation. We can see this in a plot of the cost of energy1:

You can see that the price of wind and solar plummeted in the early 2010s, reflecting enormous innovation in the production of renewable energy. That was not predicted by most mainstream forecasts (as confirmed by predictions of wind and solar above).

There has also been a lot of innovation in fossil fuel production, most importantly hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling. These technologies drove down the cost of natural gas in the late 2000s and changed the economics of electricity generation almost overnight. Coal plants that had looked like safe long-term investments suddenly faced a cheaper competitor. Yet this, too, was largely missed. In the late 2000s, many utilities were still trying to build coal plants, unable to see that coal was entering a precipitous decline.

TXU didn’t see the end of coal coming. Most of these plants were never built.

And, as wind and solar costs fell, renewables began taking market share too. Coal was not beaten by a single technology; it was beaten by a sequence of technologies that forecasters failed to anticipate.

Based on economics, coal is now a stone-cold loser. Its remaining advantage is not cost, speed of construction, or flexibility. It is politics. The Trump Administration is forcing coal-fired plants to stay open and some recent reporting suggests these interventions are raising costs for consumers.

In the competition between solar, wind, and natural gas, solar and wind are the cheapest. The combination of low costs, short construction times, and natural gas’ price volatility gives wind and solar a huge market advantage, explaining their exponential growth. Yes, solar and wind are coming for natural gas.

The plot also shows the profound disadvantage nuclear faces. Nuclear energy costs nearly $200/MWh, around four times the cost of wind and solar. And it takes a decade or two to get it online. Without government mandates or heavy policy support, I believe there is little likelihood that we will see a nuclear renaissance.

what are the implications of this?

Much of the debate in climate policy centers on the cost, difficulty, and timeline for phasing out fossil fuels in order to achieve net zero. You constantly hear pundits and analysts throwing around eye-popping numbers, confidently claiming, e.g., that “it will cost XXX trillions of dollars to reach net zero in our economy by 2050.”

from McKinsey

But if the forecasting failures of the last twenty years have taught us anything, it’s this: we simply have no idea how much decarbonization will cost.

You should treat numbers like McKinsey’s estimate above as guesses. They could be right, but historically speaking, they probably aren’t. To summarize, here are the reasons why the true cost of reaching net zero remains so uncertain:

• We can’t predict the foundational energy mix: As the charts above show, our ability to forecast the trajectory of the electricity sector even a few years out is abysmal. If forecasters cannot accurately predict the baseline scenario (how much wind, solar, or natural gas will be on the grid), it seems unlikely they will be able to make accurate predictions of how much additional solar and wind will be needed in 2050 to reach net zero.

• Innovation shatters financial models: Long-term cost forecasts rely heavily on estimates of how fast innovation will occur. Such predictions are incredibly hard to make. Almost no one foresaw the exponential drop in the price of solar energy since the late 2000s, nor did experts predict the current plummeting costs of battery storage. Falling battery costs could reshape the electricity system.

• Geopolitics rewrites the math: External shocks can alter energy economics overnight. Few energy forecasts anticipated wars in Ukraine and Iran, both of which are going to have an enormous impact on our energy mix going forward.

Overall, the uncertainty in these long-term forecasts is enormous. And if history is any guide, the errors are not random. They usually point in the same direction: they overestimate the cost of the energy transition.

One reason is that traditional forecasting models tend to assume slow, steady technological progress. But energy technologies do not always improve that way. Solar, wind, batteries, and fracking all show that costs can change fast when conditions line up. Most models, which assume gradual change, will miss these breaks.

Another problem is that fossil fuels are often treated as stable, low-risk alternatives. They are not. Their prices can swing wildly, and their supply chains are exposed to wars, political instability, and global market shocks. Those costs are real and hard to predict, so they are left out of these estimates.

That is the central point: estimates of the cost of the energy transition should be treated as conditional guesses built on assumptions about technology, fuel prices, politics, and geopolitics, all of which have repeatedly surprised us.

The lesson of the last twenty years is not that the energy transition will be easy or hard — we really don’t know. Anyone claiming to know the cost decades in advance should be treated with skepticism.

Code to reproduce the plots can be found here.

Thanks for reading The Climate Brink! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support our work.

related things

Is nuclear energy the answer? Nope.

Is renewable energy cheaper than fossil fuels? Yup.

An explanation of how renewable energy saves you money. It’s not that complicated unless you’re being paid to push fossil fuels. Then it’s very complicated.

If you’re looking for a new Substack on energy, check out Bright Spots by Jan Rosenow. This recent post discusses how renewables change the price of energy.

Do you want to see how each U.S. state’s mix of electricity has changed? Brendan Pierpont has you covered here.

1 I’m using levelized cost of energy (LCOE) as my measure of the cost to produce power from each source. I understand the limitations of LCOE, but for an energy developer, LCOE is the number that counts. Yes, wind and solar are intermittent, but that’s a grid problem. All that matters to the developer is which low-LCOE energy source they can build.

Union nurses at MedStar Washington Hospital Center (MWHC) in Washington, D.C. are demanding that management stop the planned closure of an entire postpartum unit. The hospital notified the union on May 26, 2026 of its intention to eliminate 11 maternal health beds and displace eight nurses by July 26, 2026, leaving MWHC with one postpartum unit.

This article is part of Food Tank’s primer series, “Food Tank Explains.” Each installment unpacks the ideas, innovations, and challenges shaping today’s food and agriculture systems, offering clear insights into complex topics. To explore more articles in the series, click here.

Agroforestry is a land management system that integrates trees with crops or livestock, delivering benefits for food security, environmental outcomes, and farm incomes.

Unlike monocultures, where a single crop is grown over large areas, agroforestry allows different biological systems to interact and strengthen one another, mimicking natural ecosystems. Tree roots release carbon into the soil, improving soil health, and reduce erosion by helping to support soil structures. The trees provide fodder for livestock and corridors for wildlife, while the animals enrich the soil and help with seed dispersal.

Canadian forester John Bene coined the term “agroforestry” in 1973, calling for global recognition of the key role trees play on farms. But, according to World Agroforestry (ICRAF), the practice has ancient origins steeped in local wisdom and traditional knowledge from around the world.

East Amazon communities adopted agroforestry 4,500 years ago, according to research published in Nature Plants, cultivating multiple crops alongside edible forest species. Farmers in West Africa have practiced the parkland system, one of the oldest agroforestry techniques, for over 1,000 years, growing crops like millet and sorghum beneath scattered baobabs and shea trees.

Modern agroforestry systems vary widely across regions and communities, reflecting differences in environmental conditions, cultural traditions, available resources, and local needs.

Agroforestry systems can strengthen food security by increasing and diversifying yield and by improving the availability of micronutrient-rich fruits, seeds, and nuts during lean growing periods, Todd Rosenstock, Director of CGIAR Climate Action, tells Food Tank. They can also serve as an important source of income diversification, and help generate sales that enable the purchase of further food products.

A women’s cooperative, founded by a Lenca community in Honduras, grows fair trade organic coffee under fruit-bearing trees like mango, plantain, and jackfruit. This increases crop diversity and yield, providing the cooperative with fruits that they can barter or sell at the market.

Multi-species, multi-storied, and multi-purpose gardens located close to home are common to many parts of Indonesia. Referred to as “home gardens,” these plots were historically producing foods for home consumption. Now, home gardens play a fundamental role in providing income. They are also considered to have the highest biodiversity of any human-created ecosystem.

In South and Southeast Asia, rotational farming is deeply rooted in traditional knowledge, philosophy, and spirituality, and provides a crucial source of livelihood and food security for millions of people. Prasert Tralkansuphakon, Chair of Pgakenyaw Association for Sustainable Development and Inter Mountain People Education and Culture Association in Thailand, describes agroforestry as a means of producing both food and income “in a traditional and innovative way, managed both by humans and nature, or [just] by humans, but in a natural way.”

As farmers face more frequent extreme weather events, some agroforestry systems seek to offer protection while others help improve resiliency. Windbreaks include linear tree plantings that shelter crops and soil from wind, snow, and dust. In silvopasture systems, which integrate trees and livestock, trees provide animals essential shade and shelter from extreme heat.

Karina Gonçalves David, Co-founder of ProNobis Agroflorestal, tells Food Tank that the agroforestry system on her family’s farm helps their crops withstand extreme weather. By forming a protective microclimate, the system shields crops from winter freezes, limits soil erosion, and increases the soil’s water-holding capacity.

And ICRAF research suggests that agroforestry is linked with benefits for planetary health including prevention of both air pollution and heat exposure for farmworkers, and regulation of solar radiation and wind.

To expand agroforestry more widely, researchers suggest pairing locally adapted practices with stronger support systems. CIFOR-ICRAF calls for investments in extension services, market development, and institutional capacity, while Cornell University researchers suggest that integrated landscape management can help align efforts among farmers, researchers, policymakers, and the private sector to address persistent barriers.

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 Christopher Stites

The post Food Tank Explains: Agroforestry appeared first on Food Tank.

The Brattle Group’s report lays out a framework for increasing demand-side resources to mitigate the impacts of load growth, variable renewables and distributed electrification.

The fight to protect Oregon’s Climate Protection Program continues Nora Apter Wed, 06/03/2026 - 9:56 am

On May 16th, 2026, dozens of supporters gathered at the beautiful Oak Hill Farm in Glen Ellen, shared food grown just a few steps from the table, and talked about one of the most pressing challenges of our time: how do we protect our communities from the growing threats of wildfire and extreme heat?

During our traditional Annual Sonoma Leadership Council Luncheon, supporters raised over $150,000, surpassing our goal in 20% and making it one of our best fundraising events ever, to fund climate resilience work underway across the Bay Area. A huge thank you to our incredible host and supporter, Arden Bucklin-Sporer.

The funds raised at the event will go toward concrete, on-the-ground work:

• Expanding wildfire buffer strategies countywide and helping homeowners take proactive mitigation steps.
• Advancing zoning policies that steer development away from the highest-risk areas.
  Strengthening local Fire Safe Councils with coordination and resources.
• Running community workshops that help Southwest Santa Rosa residents recognize heat risks early and protect their health.
• Creating opportunities for young people to take an active role in shaping climate solutions in their own neighborhoods.

We’ve captured some wonderful moments from the day—view event photos here.

Focusing on Solutions for Wildfire Resilience

After years of devastating fires in Sonoma County, the question is no longer whether the threat is real; it’s what to do about it. The Sonoma Luncheon has become a hub for discussing this topic and the cutting-edge solutions that are emerging in the region.

Over the past several years, Greenbelt Alliance partnered with the Sonoma County Agricultural Preservation and Open Space District and local organizations to develop the Interwoven Greenbelt Buffer—a first-of-its-kind, landscape-scale approach to wildfire risk reduction.

Rather than treating parcels of land in isolation, the model uses data and cross-sector collaboration to “weave together” conserved lands, working agricultural lands, and developed neighborhoods into coordinated buffer zones. The goal: reduce wildfire intensity before it reaches homes, protect biodiversity and farmland, and shift communities from reactive disaster response to proactive, landscape-level prevention.

It’s a scalable concept, and one that could serve as a model not just for Sonoma County, but for fire-prone communities across California and the Western US.

Rising Threat of Extreme Heat 

As a major driver of intensifying fires, extreme heat is becoming one of the region’s most dangerous public health threats. Over the past decade, Southwest Santa Rosa alone has seen nearly 10,000 heat-related emergency room visits.

In response, Greenbelt Alliance is partnering with Latino Service Providers to develop a community-led Extreme Heat Action Plan for Southwest Santa Rosa, one of our Resilience Hotspots. The effort, supported by the Governor’s Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation, centers the people most affected—agricultural workers, families, and youth— in designing the solutions. It’s a process built on community knowledge, cultural responsiveness, and local leadership.

Our Marin Resilience Manager Jessie Rountree put it simply at the luncheon: climate solutions aren’t just possible. They’re already happening.

Help Make a Difference

As we look ahead, we invite you to continue standing with us in this critical work. With your support, we can expand these solutions across the region and safeguard the places we all love.

Every year, we host this event for our Sonoma Leadership Council, a group of supporters in the North Bay who donate $1,000 or more annually towards the work we do in the region. Our work would not be possible without our donors, and this is a great opportunity to thank them and help raise funds for ongoing projects in Sonoma County and beyond. If you would like to donate toward our work or join our Sonoma Leadership Council, click here. 

Thank you again to our wonderful supporters for helping us work to build a safer and more resilient Sonoma County! 

 

The post Funding Solutions for Fire and Heat at Sonoma Luncheon appeared first on Greenbelt Alliance.

In 2021, amidst a wave of corporate net-zero targets, a campaign group called Investors for Paris Compliance was set up in British Columbia, aiming to use investor pressure to hold Canadian companies to account on their climate promises.

In the five years since, the group has notched up several wins: pressuring National Bank into providing $20 billion of finance to renewable energy, getting Royal Bank of Canada to improve its green finance labels and persuading 20-25% of investors to regularly back climate proposals at annual general meetings (AGMs) for shareholders.

But last month, the group’s then executive director Matt Price put out a statement saying it was shutting down. Despite some progress, Price explained, his organisation had concluded that “investor accountability has reached its limits”.

Companies and their investors often understand that climate change threatens the economic system, Price said. But, he added, they do not respond adequately because they are worried that, if they do, their competitors will not put in as much effort and could therefore gain a financial advantage.

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This “tragedy of the commons” situation cannot be fixed by shareholder advocacy, Price said, but instead needs litigation, regulatory action and accountability mechanisms. “Some of our team will take those things on in new initiatives,” he said.

Price’s words echo the findings of a London School of Economics (LSE) report published last month, based on workshops with asset owners and managers in New York, Amsterdam, London and Singapore.

Government policy key

The LSE report noted that “action by investors on climate change is severely constrained by their duties, the limited tools at their disposal and the pathways of technology development”. To be effective, pressure from climate-conscious investors must be coupled with government policy that incentivises green investment and technological innovation, the authors concluded.

An investigation by the Guardian recently found that, despite overwhelming shareholder support for its climate action plan, Australian mining company BHP has carried on buying polluting diesel trucks instead of electric ones. The Australian government subsidises diesel, saving BHP hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

As EU acts to stop greenwash, funds drop climate claims from their names

Lindsey Stewart, director of institutional insights for investment research firm Morningstar, told Climate Home News that investor activism does work but it “doesn’t do everything that people expected it to do towards the beginning of the 2020s”.

“There is a limit to what can be achieved by minority shareholders exercising their votes and engaging with companies. Quite a lot, it does seem, is reliant on the legal and regulatory framework,” he said, adding that the closure of Investors for Paris Compliance shows this “realisation is sinking in a lot more than perhaps it was in 2020, 2021, 2022”.

Decline of investor activism

Stewart said that in the early 2020s, investor activists were pushing companies for “things that were sort of already on the regulatory conveyor belt anyway”, like companies setting targets for their operational (Scope 1 and 2) emissions, disclosing their carbon footprints, and assessing their exposure to risk from climate change.

With this low-hanging fruit picked, green-minded investors have moved on to make demands that are more controversial and have received less support from other investors, he said. He gave examples of just transition reporting, green capital expenditure financing ratios for banks and disclosing emissions from the use of products a company sells, known as Scope 3 emissions.

On top of this, Stewart said, there has been pressure from the “right-wing political establishment in the US” against investors taking climate change into consideration. BlackRock, which manages $9.5 trillion of assets, has walked back its climate commitments after pressure from US Republicans.

More fundamentally, Stewart described the idea that fossil fuel majors would dismantle their oil and gas business and transform into renewables companies as a “pipe dream on the part of environmentalists”. “Why would they have the skill or capability, or even the stakeholder backing, to completely transform a business of that size?” he asked.

Shareholder activism is only possible at privately owned and listed companies, while most investment in oil and gas is now coming from state-owned companies, like Saudi Arabia’s Aramco. In 2025, less than a quarter of investment was from oil majors like BP and Shell.

Business backlash shows power

Yet despite the uphill climb, Mark van Baal defends shareholder activism. He runs an Amsterdam-based campaign group called Follow This, which has tried to get investors to vote for pro-climate resolutions at the AGMs of oil and gas multinationals.

He accepts that success peaked around 2021, but says the effort oil and gas firms are now putting into winning over shareholders and discouraging pro-climate resolutions – which he characterised as “the Empire Strikes Back” – shows the power of shareholder activism, which was previously underestimated.

Mark van Baal is the head of Follow This (Photo: Follow This)

In January 2024, ExxonMobil sued Follow This, aiming to block the group’s climate resolution. Fearing the case would end up in the Supreme Court, where conservative judges could set an anti-climate precedent, Follow This withdrew the resolution.

But, said van Baal, although the legal battle created a “chilling effect among investors”, it is a “proof point that shareholder pressure works and that they’re really afraid of the shareholders”.

Vote, don’t sell

Stewart and van Baal both agreed that selling, or threatening to sell off shares is not an effective way to change a company’s behaviour.

It allows less climate-conscious investors to buy the shares, they said, adding that there is no evidence that threats to sell shares and therefore lower the valuation over climate concerns have influenced company management.

Van Baal said the share price is set by short-term traders, not long-term shareholders like the pension funds he works with.

How Shell is still benefiting from offloaded Niger Delta oil assets

Nonetheless, investors’ engagement should be forceful, van Baal insisted – and not just within their comfort zone of talking to management about sustainability behind closed doors without voting for it at AGMs. “Shareholder democracy is the only democracy where voting is called escalation,” he said.

The Follow This website says that only investors can stop fossil fuel companies destroying the planet. “Marches didn’t change their minds. Lawsuits didn’t stop them. But shareholders can,” it trumpets.

But van Baal told Climate Home News this wording is “too strong” and may have to be revised, adding that shareholder activism just “fits me more than gluing myself to roads” and is a tactic he “stumbled on” 11 years ago.

Legal, political and investor activism can reinforce each other, he added. When Friends of the Earth sued Shell alleging inadequate climate action, for example, the green group’s lawyers cited the company’s rejection of a Follow This resolution as evidence. “The pressure needs to come from all sides,” van Baal said.

The post Investor climate group closes down, blaming “limits” of shareholder activism appeared first on Climate Home News.

The lawsuit calls the deal a “sham settlement agreement to unlawfully cancel an offshore wind lease and redirect the money paid for the lease to a separate, unauthorized use favored by the President.”

We handpick and explain the most important stories at the intersection of climate, land, food and nature over the past fortnight.

This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s fortnightly Cropped email newsletter.
Subscribe for free here.

Key developments Amazon updates

RECORD-LOW LOSS: Amazon deforestation rates have fallen to their lowest level since 2019, according to a report covered by Agence France-Presse. The newswire called the figures “good news” for president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, but said the rate of deforestation is still “breathtaking”, with five trees felled every second, on average. Separately, a report from Rainforest Foundation Norway found that the “currently anticipated growth in Brazilian beef production may lead to deforestation of ~57,000km2 in the Amazon by 2034”.

ROAD AND RAIL: The Brazilian government will invest $75m into a new highway “cutting through the Amazon rainforest”, reported Deutsche-Welle. The Associated Press said the administration also announced an environmental protection plan to “safeguard the forest from potential impacts from the highway”, but added that environmentalists still fear the move “could speed up Amazon deforestation”. Separately, Inside Climate News reported on a Brazilian supreme court ruling that has brought a 965km railway through the Amazon “one step closer to reality”.

BANNED IMAGES: Mongabay reported that “Brazil’s Congress has passed a bill prohibiting environmental agencies from using satellite images to restrict the commercial use of illegally deforested lands”. According to the outlet, supporters say that “satellite-only enforcement infringes upon farmers’ right to a fair defense”, while critics argue that the bill will “weaken environmental protection” and “create unsafe conditions” for Brazil’s federal environmental police. Separately, the Brazilian government has committed more than $600m (£446m) to “foster ecological investment in the Amazon region”, according to the Associated Press. 

El Niño forecast and extreme heat

‘SUPER’ STRESSED: The predicted “super” El Niño event would add stress to an “already dysfunctional and fragile global food system”, wrote the University of Sussex’s Prof Benjamin Selwyn in a commentary in the Conversation. He added that “El Niño alters rainfall, shifts jet streams and raises global temperatures”, all of which could damage harvests this summer. Reuters noted that the forecast for the phenomenon is “particularly worrying”, due to the predicted strength of the event and the contribution of climate change. 

HEAT BURDEN: “Scorching temperatures” in India have “disrupted daily life across several northern states”, said the Washington Post. The outlet added: “Some farmers have switched to nighttime work to avoid scorching temperatures as a heatwave grips large parts of India.” The heatwave is also affecting Nepal, as high temperatures have “added burdens to public health, education, agriculture, livestock, environment, employment and public infrastructure”, reported Nepal News.

‘MIND-BOGGLING’ HEAT: Meanwhile, a “heat dome” over western Europe broke UK temperature records for the month of May. Carbon Brief summarised how the “mind-boggling” heatwave was covered in both national and international press. Agence France-Presse wrote that parts of Italy approved rules limiting work in conditions “with prolonged exposure in the sun” during the hottest part of the day. The newswire added: “Farmers reported accelerated harvests as temperatures went beyond 30C across the region.”

News and views

• SNAKEBITE DANGER: “The risk of snakebites is increasing across the world as reptiles shift their habitats to cope with rising temperatures and growing human pressures,” according to new research covered in the Guardian. It added that human-snake interactions are “forecast to become more pronounced”.
• RICE RISK: “Several parts” of China are experiencing heavy rains early this year, “raising risks for agriculture and disaster management”, wrote Bloomberg. This includes “key grain-producing provinces”, as well as areas that grow rice, vegetables and fruit, added the outlet.
• DATA DROUGHT: Chile’s Quilicura wetland, just north of Santiago, is drying up as “datacentres have drained water from drought-stricken wetlands, consuming billions of litres annually”, said the Guardian. It noted that the area is home to Latin America’s “largest concentration of datacentres”. 
• ACCOUNTING TRICK: A group of scientists have called on the Irish government to reject a proposal that would allow the livestock to use a metric called GWP* to measure methane emissions, reported Inside Climate News. According to the outlet, they warned that this “accounting trick” would “downplay” the industry’s emissions. (See Carbon Brief’s explainer on GWP* for more information.)

Spotlight Three key findings on the state of carbon dioxide removal

This week, Carbon Brief unpacks three key findings from the third edition of the “state of carbon dioxide removal” report. 

Global carbon dioxide removal (CDR) will need to increase fourfold by 2050 if the world is to have a chance of limiting global warming to 1.5C by 2100, said a new report.

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

This is in addition to steep and immediate emissions cuts.

Scientists expect carbon emissions to push warming beyond 1.5C in the decade ahead, meaning that the target can only be achieved via large-scale CDR.

Here, Carbon Brief pulled out three key findings from the third state of CDR report.

‘Novel’ CDR is small, but growing

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

The world currently removes 2.2bn tonnes of CO2 (GtCO2) per year, equivalent to around 5% of gross global CO2 emissions.

The largest contributors to removing CO2 from the atmosphere are China, the US, the EU, Brazil and Russia, largely through tree-planting (afforestation) and forest restoration (reforestation).

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

These methods have been growing at a rate of 40% per year – which is “insufficient for the scale-up required to meet the Paris temperature goal”, said the report.

Current ambition will not lead to net-zero

The report examined several scenarios where global temperature rise is limited to “well below” 2C by 2100, including a current ambition scenario and a highest-possible ambition scenario.

The current ambition scenario was based on “nationally determined contributions”, or NDCs, which countries submit periodically to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Under this scenario, the report projected a total of 5.9GtCO2 of CDR by 2050 and 12GtCO2 by 2100. This scenario would result in end-of-century warming of 1.7-2.7C. 

Importantly, the report said, current ambition does not result in the world reaching net-zero CO2 levels, “meaning that global temperatures would continue to rise” – albeit more slowly – beyond 2100.

Under the highest-possible ambition scenario, CDR scales up to 8.8GtCO2 by mid-century and 15.3GtCO2 by the end of the century. This results in global temperatures peaking at 1.7-1.8C around 2050 and the world achieving net-zero emissions around that time. 

Reducing emissions now lowers the need for future CDR

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

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

The size of the CDR gap is dependent on both the pledges made by countries and the choice of the “benchmark” scenario against which they are measured.

Current NDCs and other country submissions to the UNFCCC total 2.5GtCO2 per year of removals in 2030 and 3.6GtCO2 per year in 2050. Using the highest-ambition scenario as a benchmark, this gives a CDR gap of 0.3GtCO2 in 2030 and 5.2GtCO2 in 2050, according to the report. 

By comparison, a 10-year delay in implementing ambitious emissions reductions will result in the need to remove at least an additional 150GtCO2 from the atmosphere, compared to the most ambitious scenario.

This Spotlight is adapted from Carbon Brief’s Q&A on the state of CDR report. You can read the article in full here.

Watch, read, listen

‘DEVASTATING’ DATA: Grist reported on a proposed Utah datacentre that could be “devastating” to the ecology of the Great Salt Lake – the largest saline lake in the world. 

ECO-OIL: The Times explained how a new synthetic oil, grown in a lab in north-west England, could be used as a substitute for palm oil. 

EL NIÑO IMPACTS: An interactive piece from BBC News described how the forecasted “super” El Niño could impact global climate and weather in the coming months.

‘BATTERY COWS’: The Guardian covered work from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism that found a “huge rise” in factory-style dairy farming of “battery cows” in the UK.

New science

• Greenhouse gas emissions from rice paddies have doubled globally over the past six decades | Nature Food
• Climate change will shift the timing and location of hailstorms – increasing the risk of damage to winter crops, such as wheat, but decreasing the risk to summer crops, such as maize | Nature Climate Change 
• Wind turbines in western Europe put more than 100m migratory birds “at risk” of collision annually, but this number can be lowered through limiting energy production at strategic times | Nature Sustainability

In the diary

• 2-5 June: UN expert meeting on food and agriculture | Rome
• 5 June: World environment day
• 8-18 June: Subsidiary body meetings of the UNFCCC | Bonn, Germany
• 15-19 June: Meeting of the parties to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea | New York City
• 16-18 June: Our Ocean Conference | Mombasa, Kenya

Cropped is researched and written by Dr Giuliana Viglione, Aruna Chandrasekhar, Daisy Dunne and Orla Dwyer.  Please send tips and feedback to cropped@carbonbrief.org

The post Cropped 3 June 2026: Highway through the Amazon | El Niño impact | State of CO2 removal appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Contact: Kayla Ritchie | kayla@unbendablemedia.com

In response to Trump’s latest artificial intelligence executive order, Mar Zepeda Salazar, Policy Director at the Climate Justice Alliance, a coalition representing nearly 100 frontline community-based and supporting networks across the country released the following statement: 

“The latest AI Executive Order is being couched in terms of US dominance, cybersecurity, and national competitiveness. But for the communities living near data centers, gas plants, and transmission corridors, the real story is the collateral damage that will be left in its wake because of what this order leaves out.

No mandatory environmental review. No energy or water use disclosures. No Tribal consultation. No cumulative impact analysis. No legal protections for communities.

Accelerated AI and data center infrastructure buildout will only raise our electricity bills, increase pressure for new fossil fuel plants, drain our  water supplies, and expand polluting industry — disproportionately sited near rural, Black, Brown, Indigenous, and low-income communities.

At a time when the climate crisis and public health emergencies continue to accelerate with little to no end in sight, we will continue to demand strong mandatory safeguards, licensing requirements, environmental protections, and community protections for the people of this country. Nothing less will do.”

 

 

 

The post The Real Story Behind Trump’s Latest AI executive order is what it leaves out appeared first on Climate Justice Alliance.

In a few days, host cities across North America will welcome huge World Cup crowds by pedestrianizing major streets – and in some cases, entire neighborhoods – to keep traffic jams out of the fan parades and festivals associated with the international event.

Boston will not be among them.

On Tuesday, the City of Boston and MBTA announced a compromise plan for managing heavy crowds around South Station that would keep Summer Street open to vehicular traffic on some – but not all – World Cup match days.

Mayor Wu’s administration had been fighting the T to keep Summer Street open to cars and trucks amidst the thousands of soccer fans that are expected to converge at South Station as they wait to board trains to Foxboro.

In the compromise plan announced Tuesday, Summer Street will be pedestrianized between Dorchester Avenue and Atlantic Avenue for eight hours on four match days: Saturday June 13, Friday the 19th, Monday the 29th, and for the quarter-final match on Thursday July 9.

For matches held on Thursday the 16th, Thursday the 23rd, and Sunday the 26th, the city plans to keep the northern lanes of Summer Street open to cars for the convenience of people who desire to drive through thick crowds of soccer fans into one of the most congested districts of the city.

But drivers should be warned: “the direction of travel will be coordinated based on the demands of the respective day and time,” and the city and the T may add “additional temporary traffic restrictions and lane closures to accommodate crowd management,” according to a press release that the MBTA and City of Boston issued yesterday.

Summer Street will also be entirely closed for an indeterminate period on all seven match days “while the MBTA sets up the temporary security screening and queuing space” outside South Station.

Other cities have more serious game plans

Boston’s nearest World Cup peer city, New York, recently announced a major transit-focused transportation plan for match days that will ban private cars and truck deliveries from numerous busy streets around Midtown Manhattan, even though the actual games are happening six miles away in New Jersey.

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani last week announced that on World Cup match days, the city will expand bus-only lanes throughout Midtown Manhattan and transform 42nd Street – a major cross-town connection – to a bus-only corridor.

In a striking contrast to Mayor Wu’s approach, Mamdani’s administration is also planning to create large car-free pedestrian zones on the streets around Penn Station so that thousands of soccer fans will have plenty of space as they wait for trains to New Jersey.

New York had also previously announced plans to transform 50 streets near schools into car-free “soccer streets” this summer.

In another contrast with Boston, Philadelphia is also coordinating its World Cup traffic planning with its preparations for a surge of tourism for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

Philadelphia will close several Lemon Hill roadways to vehicular traffic for the duration of its World Cup fan festival, and it will also pedestrianize the outer lanes of Benjamin Franklin Parkway, the grand boulevard between Center City and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, for the entire summer.

The city is also pitching in $450,000 to subsidize additional PHLASH bus service between the fan festival in Lemon Hill and the central city.

Even the two World Cup host cities in Texas are taking a more enlightened approach to transportation.

Houston is pedestrianizing roughly 30 blocks of streets in its East Downtown district for daily World Cup “fan festivals” in June and July.

In Dallas, where games will take place in a suburban stadium about 17 miles from the city center, the city will close several downtown streets near its World Cup broadcasting center in the downtown convention center, and on several blocks around the city’s fan festival in the state fairgrounds.

The Trump administration is moving to dismantle an ocean observation system consisting of more than 900 instruments in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. Data supplied by the system has been used to study key Atlantic currents that increasingly appear in danger of collapse as the climate warms.

Read more on E360 →

By 2042, DTE expects to have more than 2.9 GW of energy storage on its system, more than doubling its current storage capacity.

By late May, New York City is full of baby birds. Speckled young robins have fledged their messy nests and hop along after their parents, still hoping for an offered worm. Young Red-tailed Hawks...

Con el objetivo de fortalecer y dar visibilidad a experiencias locales que promueven la prevención y gestión responsable de residuos, la iniciativa Rutas basura cero seleccionó una serie de recorridos presenciales ejecutados por organizaciones locales en distintos países de América Latina. 

La propuesta surge en un contexto de creciente preocupación por la crisis de los residuos y los impactos ambientales, sociales y económicos asociados al actual modelo de producción y consumo. Frente a este escenario, las estrategias de basura cero han demostrado ser una alternativa efectiva para reducir la generación de residuos mediante prácticas de reducción, reúso, reciclaje y compostaje, al tiempo que promueven la justicia ambiental y el fortalecimiento de las economías locales.

En particular, los sistemas de reúso y rellenado están cobrando cada vez más relevancia como soluciones replicables y escalables para avanzar hacia comunidades más saludables y sostenibles. Sin embargo, muchas de estas experiencias continúan siendo poco conocidas fuera de sus zonas, lo que limita su potencial de incidencia y réplica.

Para revertir esta situación, el proyecto Rutas basura cero impulsa recorridos presenciales coordinados por organizaciones locales, que permiten a tomadores de decisiones, representantes de gobiernos, académicos, líderes sociales y otros actores clave conocer de primera mano iniciativas exitosas en funcionamiento.

Las rutas incluyen visitas a proyectos con al menos un año de trayectoria y resultados comprobables, vinculados a prácticas como el rellenado de envases, el lavado y reutilización de utensilios, el compostaje descentralizado y el cooperativismo. Además, cada experiencia es documentada mediante registros audiovisuales que pasan a integrar una base regional de casos de éxito.

La iniciativa busca generar espacios de intercambio entre experiencias consolidadas y actores estratégicos, así como producir materiales que contribuyan a la difusión y sistematización de aprendizajes sobre modelos basura cero en la región.

A continuación, compartimos las organizaciones e iniciativas seleccionadas que forman parte de esta primera edición de Rutas basura cero:

Entrejardines nos lleva a la compostera y huerta comunitaria del barrio La Floresta en Quito, luego pasamos por Pure!, una empresa de turismo que comparte cómo ha adoptado prácticas de reúso y segregación en origen dentro de su oficina, y terminamos en el restaurante Pim’s donde conocemos cómo gestionan sus residuos sólidos y orgánicos. 

La Asociación Defensores Monumento Zona de los Santos, nos muestra cómo están trabajando para preservar una zona de alta biodiversidad a través del manejo de residuos de subproductos de procesos de cultivo de café como el que hacen en CoopeTarrazu y Coopedota. Luego terminamos con una parada en el Centro de acopio Preserve Planet (CAPP) para saber más sobre segregación de residuos y recuperación de tapas de refrescos.

Fundación Lenga nos traslada a la zona más austral del Chile donde iniciamos el recorrido en Compost Coiron y su proyecto de gestión de residuos orgánicos, donde además nos cuentan cómo el turismo influye en el colapso del vertedero municipal de Puerto Natales. En Punta Arenas, conocemos el laboratorio textil Puro Viento, una iniciativa de reuso que utiliza residuos textiles y gigantografías publicitarias para hacer artículos como mochilas, estuches, entre otros. Finalmente, llegamos a Puerto Williams para saber más sobre la iniciativa municipal de gestión de residuos.

The post Rutas basura cero: una iniciativa regional para visibilizar experiencias de reúso y gestión sostenible de residuos first appeared on GAIA.

Reform run councils do not represent local opinion on climate

Image by Mick Holder

The increased number of Reform run Councils reversing climate emergency declarations and rowing back on limited but essential climate mitigation and adaptation measures should not be confused with popular support for them on this issue; even in areas where they have won with a landslide. 

Friends of the Earth have produced a very useful study of popular opinion – and the key environmental/climate issues – for every local authority in England. You can find yours by typing your postcode into the home page here. 

An example is Thurrock, where Reform won 45 seats out of 49 in May, but; 

• 71% of people are worried about the climate crisis, 

• 60% think it should be a government priority 

• and 75% support renewable energy.

This concern is also reflected among existing Reform voters nationally, almost twice as many of whom would back a solar farm over fracking as the best way to create energy in their local area when forced to pick between the two (43:23%). The figures for voters in general are even more strongly opposed to Reform policy, with 60% choosing solar over 10% choosing fracking.

Back in Thurrock, there are serious climate and environmental issues affecting people’s everyday lives that any council will have to address; however you label them: 

• 52% of homes are poorly insulated, 

• 100% of neighbourhoods have air quality below WHO standards, reflecting poor local public transport, non existing cycling infrastructure and too few public EV chargers, 

• 54,480 people are at extreme risk of flooding, 

• only 28% of household waste is recycled 

• and 89% of neighbourhoods have less than 20% tree cover.

Every other Reform dominated area will have a similar, but specific, profile and this is an area of political vulnerability for them.

Check out your own local authority, gain strength from the knowledge that Reform Councillors are a loud minority standing on very thin ice (which is getting thinner as it gets hotter) and think about how to campaign on the key problems, and who else to do it with. 

Paul Atkin 

 

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The post Reform run councils do not represent local opinion on climate first appeared on Greener Jobs Alliance.

Constellation Energy will be able to transfer capacity interconnection rights, enabling the nuclear unit to potentially deliver all its power when it restarts, possibly before the end of 2027.

Google has worked to make its data centers flexible, the company’s global head of data center energy told Utility Dive, but it’s often faster and more cost effective to pay other customers to shift their electricity usage.