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

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

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

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

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

• May 29, 2026 Comment COP31 must persuade countries to make fossil fuel transition plans  As the Iran war disrupts oil and gas supplies, the UN climate summit should tackle fossil fuel dependency, energy affordability and energy access – national roadmaps are a good start Read more
• May 27, 2026 Clean Energy Frontier Recycling could meet half of Europe’s critical mineral needs by 2050 A new report by an EU-funded research project says the bloc could harness its “urban mines” to reduce its dependence on China for energy transition minerals Read more
• Apr 22, 2026 Sponsored To phase out fossil fuels, developing countries need exit route from “debt trap” New research from the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative shows that the Global South’s debt crisis is slowing down the pace of the energy transition and supporting fossil fuels Read more

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• May 8, 2026 News Indigenous groups warn Amazon oil expansion tests fossil fuel phase-out coalition South American nations like Ecuador, Peru and Brazil have led oil expansions in the Amazon rainforest, one of the most biodiverse regions in the planet Read more
• Jun 1, 2026 Comment Agricultural subsidies can be repurposed for a just and sustainable rural transition Achieving climate goals and zero waste without undermining farming communities requires financial support – a priority for the COP31 Presidency Read more

“Disappointing” conference report

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sources

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Electric Vehicle Myths

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

IPCC Sixth Assessment Report Chapter 2: Emissions trends and drivers

U.S. Department of Energy All-Electric Vehicles

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

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Power Sector Evolution

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

Please use this form to provide feedback about this fact brief. This will help us to better gauge its impact and usability. Thank you!

About fact briefs published on Gigafact

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Image: ©Anthropocene Magazine.

Headline News:

• “A €100 Billion Queue: Why Europeans Wait Years For Clean Energy” • Over €100 billion of renewables are stuck in Europe, as communities across the continent wait years for solar panels and heat pumps. A report found that 375 GW of clean energy projects and 455 GW of battery storage projects are trapped in distribution grid queues. [Euronews]

Wind turbine (Wolfgang Weiser, Unsplash)

• “Electricity Prices Fall Across Australia As Renewables Build Momentum” • As bulk power costs decline in Australia’s eastern states due to high renewable energy inputs, the price reductions are finally reaching the household and small business consumer. More than 400,000 small-scale storage systems have a stabilizing influence on the grid. [CleanTechnica]
• “Australia’s First 8-Hour Battery Gets Go-Ahead As 144 Tesla Megapacks Prepare To Transform The Grid” • Australia’s first eight-hour battery energy storage system has cleared a major hurdle. The project pairs 144 Tesla Megapacks with an existing solar farm in New South Wales, aiming to help keep electricity flowing long after sundown. [The Cool Down]
• “Turning Point For Power Market As Storage Is No Longer Optional” • Battery storage is becoming conventional and a critical element of the electricity system, according to a panel held at Belgrade Energy Forum. Countries in Southeastern Europe must show clarity and enable operators to participate in multiple markets. [Balkan Green Energy News]
• “Court Dismisses GE Vineyard Appeal” • A Massachusetts judge has rejected GE Vernova’s request to throw out a previous order requiring it to continue working on CIP-Iberdrola’s 806-MW Vineyard Wind 1 array off the coast of Massachusetts. Turbine supplier GE Vernova is required to continue maintaining and servicing the project. [reNews]

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

Dalam konteks tersebut, sportsbook mobile menjadi solusi yang menawarkan kemudahan sekaligus tantangan baru bagi penyedia layanan. Tidak cukup hanya menghadirkan tampilan yang responsif, platform modern juga harus mampu memenuhi ekspektasi pengguna terkait performa, keamanan, serta kenyamanan navigasi.

Karakteristik Pengguna Aktif dalam Ekosistem Sportsbook Mobile

Untuk memahami mengapa sportsbook mobile semakin diminati, penting untuk mengenali karakteristik pengguna aktif saat ini.

Sebagian besar pengguna modern mengakses informasi olahraga secara real-time. Mereka mengikuti jadwal pertandingan, statistik pemain, berita terbaru, hingga perubahan odds dalam waktu yang hampir bersamaan. Aktivitas tersebut membutuhkan platform yang dapat memproses data secara cepat dan stabil.

Pengguna aktif juga cenderung melakukan multitasking. Mereka dapat memantau pertandingan sambil bekerja, bepergian, atau menjalankan aktivitas harian lainnya. Oleh karena itu, sportsbook yang ideal harus mampu memberikan pengalaman penggunaan yang ringan, cepat, dan tidak membebani perangkat.

Selain itu, kelompok pengguna ini biasanya memiliki tingkat ekspektasi yang lebih tinggi terhadap kualitas layanan. Mereka tidak hanya mencari variasi pertandingan, tetapi juga menginginkan fitur-fitur pendukung yang membantu pengambilan keputusan secara lebih efektif.

Faktor Penting yang Menentukan Kualitas Sportsbook Mobile 1. Kecepatan dan Stabilitas Sistem

Salah satu aspek paling krusial dalam sportsbook mobile adalah performa sistem.

Dalam dunia taruhan olahraga, perubahan odds dapat terjadi dalam hitungan detik. Keterlambatan sistem berpotensi menyebabkan pengguna kehilangan peluang yang dianggap menguntungkan. Oleh karena itu, platform yang mampu memproses transaksi secara cepat memiliki nilai lebih dibandingkan kompetitornya.

Stabilitas server juga menjadi indikator penting. Pengguna aktif cenderung mengakses platform pada jam-jam sibuk ketika pertandingan besar berlangsung. Jika sistem mengalami gangguan atau lambat merespons, tingkat kepuasan pengguna akan menurun secara signifikan.

2. Desain Antarmuka yang Efisien

Tampilan visual bukan sekadar persoalan estetika. Dalam sportsbook mobile, desain antarmuka berperan besar dalam meningkatkan efektivitas penggunaan.

Platform yang baik biasanya menerapkan navigasi sederhana dengan struktur menu yang mudah dipahami. Pengguna dapat menemukan pertandingan, pasar taruhan, serta informasi pendukung tanpa harus melalui banyak langkah.

Pendekatan ini sangat penting karena sebagian besar pengguna mobile mengoperasikan aplikasi dengan layar yang relatif terbatas. Semakin cepat informasi ditemukan, semakin tinggi pula tingkat kenyamanan pengguna.

3. Konsumsi Data dan Performa Aplikasi

Banyak pengguna aktif mengakses sportsbook melalui jaringan seluler saat berada di luar rumah atau kantor. Dalam kondisi tersebut, efisiensi penggunaan data menjadi faktor yang perlu diperhatikan.

Aplikasi yang terlalu berat dapat menguras kuota internet sekaligus mempercepat konsumsi daya baterai. Sebaliknya, sportsbook mobile yang dioptimalkan dengan baik mampu memberikan pengalaman lancar tanpa membebani perangkat pengguna.

Pentingnya Fitur Real-Time bagi Pengguna Aktif

Salah satu keunggulan utama sportsbook mobile modern adalah kemampuan menghadirkan informasi secara real-time.

Fitur ini mencakup pembaruan skor langsung, statistik pertandingan, perubahan odds, hingga notifikasi penting yang relevan dengan aktivitas pengguna. Kehadiran data real-time memungkinkan pengguna membuat keputusan berdasarkan informasi terkini.

Dari sudut pandang analitis, fitur ini tidak hanya meningkatkan kenyamanan tetapi juga memperkaya kualitas pengalaman pengguna. Akses terhadap data yang cepat membantu pengguna memahami dinamika pertandingan secara lebih komprehensif sebelum mengambil keputusan.

Keamanan sebagai Faktor Penentu Kepercayaan

Keamanan merupakan elemen yang tidak dapat dipisahkan dari kualitas sebuah sportsbook mobile.

Pengguna aktif umumnya melakukan berbagai aktivitas melalui perangkat yang sama, mulai dari transaksi keuangan hingga komunikasi pribadi. Karena itu, perlindungan data menjadi prioritas utama.

Platform yang kredibel biasanya menerapkan enkripsi data, autentikasi berlapis, serta sistem perlindungan akun yang memadai. Langkah-langkah tersebut bertujuan untuk meminimalkan risiko akses tidak sah dan menjaga kerahasiaan informasi pengguna.

Dari perspektif jangka panjang, tingkat keamanan yang tinggi berkontribusi langsung terhadap loyalitas pengguna. Semakin besar rasa aman yang dirasakan, semakin tinggi pula tingkat kepercayaan terhadap platform tersebut.

Analisis Keunggulan Sportsbook Mobile Dibanding Platform Konvensional

Jika dibandingkan dengan platform desktop tradisional, sportsbook mobile menawarkan sejumlah keunggulan yang relevan dengan gaya hidup modern.

Pertama, fleksibilitas akses memungkinkan pengguna tetap terhubung dengan berbagai pertandingan tanpa bergantung pada lokasi tertentu.

Kedua, notifikasi instan memberikan informasi penting secara cepat sehingga pengguna tidak perlu terus-menerus memantau aplikasi.

Ketiga, integrasi teknologi mobile memungkinkan pengalaman yang lebih personal melalui pengaturan preferensi, rekomendasi pertandingan, dan fitur kustomisasi lainnya.

Namun demikian, sportsbook mobile juga memiliki tantangan tersendiri, seperti keterbatasan ukuran layar dan kebutuhan optimasi performa yang lebih kompleks. Oleh karena itu, kualitas pengembangan aplikasi menjadi faktor yang sangat menentukan keberhasilan platform tersebut.

Masa Depan Sportsbook Mobile untuk Pengguna Modern

Melihat perkembangan teknologi saat ini, masa depan sportsbook mobile diperkirakan akan semakin mengarah pada pengalaman yang lebih personal dan berbasis data.

Pemanfaatan kecerdasan buatan, analisis statistik yang lebih mendalam, serta teknologi notifikasi yang lebih cerdas berpotensi meningkatkan kualitas interaksi antara pengguna dan platform. Selain itu, peningkatan jaringan internet berkecepatan tinggi akan mendukung penyajian informasi real-time yang semakin akurat dan cepat.

Bagi pengguna aktif, perkembangan ini membuka peluang untuk memperoleh pengalaman yang lebih efisien, informatif, dan nyaman dibandingkan sebelumnya.

Kesimpulan

Sportsbook mobile telah menjadi bagian penting dari evolusi industri taruhan olahraga digital. Bagi pengguna aktif yang mengutamakan mobilitas, kecepatan, dan akses instan, platform mobile menawarkan berbagai keunggulan yang sulit ditandingi oleh sistem konvensional.

Namun, kualitas sebuah sportsbook mobile tidak hanya ditentukan oleh ketersediaan aplikasi semata. Faktor seperti stabilitas sistem, kemudahan navigasi, fitur real-time, efisiensi performa, serta keamanan data menjadi elemen utama yang menentukan pengalaman pengguna secara keseluruhan.

Dalam lingkungan digital yang semakin kompetitif, sportsbook mobile yang mampu menggabungkan seluruh aspek tersebut akan memiliki peluang lebih besar untuk memenuhi kebutuhan pengguna modern yang terus berkembang.

FEDERAL AND PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENTS’ legal obligation to consult and accommodate Indigenous nations has been confirmed by the Supreme Court of Canada for over 20 years. The duty to consult is triggered when a government’s action may affect Indigenous Nations’ rights. An action that could severely impair Indigenous Nations’ exercise of their rights entails accommodation measures to mitigate negative effects. Additionally, British Columbia in 2019 passed legislation committing the government to align its laws with the United Nations’ Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). UNDRIP affirms Indigenous Nations’ right to self-determination, including the right to free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) to make decisions that affect Indigenous lands. Prior to 2023, British Columbia’s mineral claims regime violated both the imperative to consult Indigenous Nations and the principles of UNDRIP. In the previous system, individuals or companies with a Free Miner Certificate could pay a nominal fee to register a mineral or placer claim through B.C’s Mineral Titles Online. These claims confer a priority right to subsurface minerals and the exclusive ability to pursue further permits to conduct significant exploration work. First Nations had no role in the claims registration process and were only consulted during the later permitting stage. This “free entry” system would have likely remained in place if not for litigation that challenged its constitutionality. 

Gitxaała vs. British Columbia (2023)

The Gitxaała Nation and Ehattesaht First Nation first successfully challenged the “free entry” system in 2023, with the British Columbia Supreme Court confirming that it violated the duty to consult. The B.C. government was ordered to reform the regime to implement consultation processes, which was rolled out in March 2025. However, it took an appeal to produce an additional ruling from the B.C. Court of Appeal in 2025 that confirmed the previous mineral claims regime was also inconsistent with FPIC, as incorporated by the B.C. government’s legislation. This judicial acknowledgement that the Mineral Tenure Act is inconsistent with Indigenous nations’ rights under UNDRIP must thus be addressed in subsequent consultative forums and reforms, which could be subject to future litigation. The B.C. Court of Appeal’s decision is being appealed by the B.C. government on the grounds that it is creating “confusion” over the legal status of UNDRIP in Canada (Depner 2026). 

It is worth pausing here to further examine the B.C. government’s position. The B.C. government accepted the need for reforms aimed at incorporating Indigenous consultation to meet both their duty to consult under Canadian common law and the standards of UNDRIP as affirmed in B.C. legislation. However, the B.C. government is challenging the position that inconsistencies between the Mineral Tenure Act and other B.C. laws and UNDRIP are justiciable. The B.C. government is arguing against judicial forms of accountability over how UNDRIP is implemented.

The rejection of judicial intervention over UNDRIP implementation would mean that only the duty to consult creates a justiciable standard of honourable state conduct towards Indigenous Nations, leaving UNDRIP and legislation affirming it to be treated as an aspirational framework.

A similar challenge by the Canadian Nuclear Laboratories is being made to the Federal Court of Appeal after the Federal Court in early 2025 ruled that UNDRIP serves as an interpretative lens that changes the standards of Indigenous consultation. 

Legitimacy Deficits

Excluding the judiciary as a venue to challenge the state’s implementation of UNDRIP is the latest demonstration of the state’s preference for controlling processes of decision-making, particularly over land and waters. The evolution of the duty to consult is illustrative of what happens when the judiciary permits the state to use existing decision-making processes that simply integrate additional steps to include Indigenous consultation. In Process as Power, I analyze how the duty to consult’s obligations as outlined in Canadian common law permits Canadian governments to consult Indigenous Nations without adapting to Indigenous standards of good governance. The judiciary did not compel Canadian governments to restructure the process of decision-making, only that Indigenous Nations must be formally included in pre-existing models with the final decision-making power residing with a minister.

The consequences of perfunctory consultation are enduring legitimacy deficits throughout state decision-making, contributing to continuing Indigenous-state conflict and litigation. 

Such legitimacy deficits arose when B.C.’s mineral claims regime was reformed to conform to the duty to consult standard. In a six-month review of those reforms, a majority of First Nations survey responses revealed that they perceived the decision-making process to lack transparency and produce only weak accommodation measures. Despite formally meeting the duty to consult, these consultative processes overburden Indigenous communities to review numerous applications because no additional supports are provided (Ministry of Mining and Critical Minerals 2025, 16); they do not clearly demonstrate how Indigenous feedback was considered and were even perceived to ignore First Nations (Ibid, 17); and they produce unresponsive accommodation measures (Ibid, 18). These results are striking because they closely mirror issues present in other decision-making processes related to reviewing industrial activities. Process as Power includes an examination of B.C.’s Environmental Assessment process and the same state-driven unilateralism permeates that forum as well. I trace how these deficiencies are tied to the ways in which the duty to consult case law over time permitted state-led decision-making designs while narrowly defining what Indigenous Nations can raise in consultative forums. 

Implementing UNDRIP?

UNDRIP fundamentally departs from the duty to consult standard because it presents an Indigenous-driven framework through FPIC that respects Indigenous self-determination. The fact that governments like B.C., Canada, and the Northwest Territories have passed UNDRIP-affirming legislation showed promising signs that reconciliation politics was backed by some action. But UNDRIP’s implementation was always going to be the real test of these governments’ commitments. In the context of the B.C. Environmental Assessment process, I find that reforms starting in 2018 have made some progress to improve the capacity of Indigenous Nations to review applications and to consistently respect the rights-holding status of Indigenous Nations. Other developments are more concerning, like how decision-making power continues to reside with a minister who is not bound by any party, including a new dispute resolution facilitator. Crucially, in this particular policy area, ongoing nation-to-nation negotiations are being pursued to advance additional reforms to uphold UNDRIP (Environmental Assessment Office 2025). 

Combatting the state’s asymmetrical hold over decision-making in matters that affect Indigenous Nations would be completely undermined if governments could unilaterally decide how to implement UNDRIP. The Eby government’s attempted volte-face to suspend parts of their UNDRIP-affirming legislation in response to the mining litigation is not only a political betrayal to the Indigenous Nations in that province working to advance UNDRIP but also conflicts with the direction established in recent appellate decisions. Canadian appellate courts have explained that legislative commitments, like those aimed at implementing UNDRIP, engage the Crown’s honour, which compels these governments to act upon their declarations. The Crown being bound to fulfill legislative promises related to the goal of reconciliation has been affirmed in other Indigenous rights contexts like the C-92 Reference decision (2024) concerning Indigenous child welfare. As explained in Gitxaała v. British Columbia (2025), the B.C. government’s legislative “affirmation…amounts to a binding Crown promise, namely, that the Crown will act as though the existing legal rights, obligations, principles, minimum standards and goals expressed in UNDRIP in specific relation to Indigenous peoples apply to British Columbia laws, including the common law” (at para. 161). 

Thus, the appeal of the Gitxaała v. British Columbia decision shows that legal uncertainty stems more from the state’s intransigence to maintain its decision-making processes than UNDRIP’s status in Canadian law. Unfortunately, the lack of cooperation on UNDRIP’s implementation may also produce a chilling effect that prevents the passage of UNDRIP-affirming legislation in other jurisdictions.

The conflict over process rights is just beginning and will continue to entwine both legal and political developments.

Endnotes

Depner, W. (2026, February 7). B.C. seeks to challenge landmark court ruling over mineral rights and DRIPA. CBC News. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/eby-dripa-gitxaala-ruling-challenge-mineral-rights-9.7078151

British Columbia Environmental Assessment Office. (2025, September). Review of the 2018 Environmental Assessment Act [Backgrounder]. Government of British Columbia. https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/environment/natural-resource-stewardship/environmental-assessments/act-review/eao_act_review_backgrounder.pdf

British Columbia Ministry of Mining and Critical Minerals. (2025, December). Mineral Claims Consultation Framework—6 month review. Government of British Columbia. https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/environment/natural-resource-stewardship/environmental-assessments/act-review/mineral_claims_consultation_framework__6_month_review.pdf

Gitxaała v. British Columbia (Chief Gold Commissioner), 2025 BCCA 430.

Citation:

Do, Minh. “The Politics of Process: B.C.’s Mineral Claims Regime and the Threat of an FPIC Freeze,” Yellowhead Institute. June 02, 2026. https://yellowheadinstitute.org/2026/the-politics-of-process-b-c-s-mineral-claims-regime-and-the-threat-of-an-fpic-freeze

The post The Politics of Process: B.C.’s Mineral Claims Regime and the Threat of an FPIC Freeze appeared first on Yellowhead Institute.

“This is serious. Bellona has no financial reserves. Every kroner we raise goes directly into environmental work. When major disbursements from donors and government agencies are delayed, we have nothing to fall back on. We have cut costs and reduced staff. It is not enough. We now need help from everyone who believes Norway still needs an independent environmental organization,” said Bellona Managing Director Sveinung Rotevatn.

Help save Bellona by contributing here (see below for help)

Nearly forty years of results for Norway and the world — but there is more work to do

Since 1986, the Bellona Foundation in Oslo has worked to advance practical environmental solutions, technological innovation, and accountability in both government and industry. The organization has been a key driving force behind Norway’s adoption of electric vehicles and the development of carbon capture and storage, and today maintains offices in Norway, Brussels, Berlin, and Vilnius.

“Bellona is my life’s work. I have spent forty years building an organization that has challenged those in power, exposed environmental crime, and helped drive forward solutions. Two weeks before our 40th anniversary, I am not willing to see that work disappear without a fight,” said Bellona founder Frederic Hauge.

Hauge argues that the Bellona Foundation in Oslo will continue to play an important watchdog role in the years ahead, particularly in holding the oil and gas industry accountable during difficult economic times and in promoting ambitious new initiatives, such as large-scale restoration of Norway’s kelp forests.

“Someone also has to demonstrate that it is possible to cut emissions and make money at the same time. Otherwise, we risk losing the business community along the way. And if that happens, we will never get back to 1.5 degrees,” Hauge said.

Employees in Vilnius could face persecution by Russian authorities

One particularly serious aspect of the crisis concerns Bellona’s office in Vilnius. Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Bellona evacuated key staff members from Russia for their own safety. If the organization is unable to secure continued operations, those employees could lose their residence permits and find themselves in a highly vulnerable situation.

Bellona is currently in dialogue with donors and government authorities while pursuing both short-term financing and longer-term solutions.

“We are not asking for sympathy. We are asking for support for work that is still urgently needed. The climate crisis has not been solved. Bellona must not disappear,” said Hauge.

How to donate from outside Norway

Go to the donation page: https://www.spleis.no/project/500141

1. Click “Støtt” (for Support / Donate).
2. Enter the amount you want to donate.
   (Approximate exchange rate: 100 NOK ≈ €8–9 (rates may vary).
3. You can optionally leave a message: “Vil du legge igjen en hilsen?” (Would you like to leave a message?)
   Your message will appear under “Aktivitet” (Activity) on the fundraiser page.
   
   Optional fields:
   • Navnet ditt (Valgfritt) = Your name (Optional)
   • Hilsen (Valgfritt) = Message (Optional)
4. Choose a payment method under “Betalingsalternativer” (Payment options). Available methods include:
   • Vipps (Norwegian mobile payment app)
   • Kort (Card payment)
   • Faktura (Invoice / Pay later)
5. Complete the payment and confirm your donation. You should receive a confirmation once it is successful.

The fundraiser is hosted on the Norwegian crowdfunding platform Spleis.

The post Bellona Oslo Faces Bankruptcy, Needs NOK 8 Million to Survive appeared first on Bellona.org.

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:

Quito, Ecuador: https://youtu.be/zAfFljwO-uU

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. 

Zona de los Santos, Costa Rica: https://youtu.be/VTS_io9FWok

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 Coope Tarrazu 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.

Magallanes, Chile: https://youtu.be/fOl7LHwXlEg

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 Potter Valley Project, which dams Northern California’s Eel River, isn’t doing very much right now. Its reservoir is clogged with sediment, and drought often empties it out. The project once supported a hydroelectric power plant that could produce about 9 megawatts of electricity, which is about 1 percent of a typical fossil-fuel-fired plant, but it has not worked in years. Plus, some of its infrastructure may be at risk of collapsing during an earthquake.

Like thousands of other small dams across the U.S., it is now more trouble than it’s worth. That’s why the utility that owns the project, Pacific Gas and Electric, moved last year to demolish it and undam the river. PG&E has wanted to abandon the project for decades, but a final removal agreement required years of careful negotiation. The dam project currently supplies water to vineyards and cities in Sonoma County, and it’s the sole water source for the rural farm community of Potter Valley. 

The final agreement was a delicate compromise: The Round Valley Indian Tribe, which has senior rights to water from the Eel, agreed to let some water flow from the river to farmers through a diversion tunnel, and the farmers agreed to accept about half the water they had received in past years when the reservoir was full. Supporters say that dam removal will restore natural water flow for vulnerable fish that have long inhabited the river. 

But now, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins appears determined to blow up the deal.

An aerial view of the Potter Valley Project. Kyle Schwartz / CalTrout

The longtime ally of President Trump has joined a small group of local residents in mounting a public campaign against the deal. She may well succeed — she’s already identified an obscure Southern California water agency that suggests it’s open to taking control of the dams.

The intervention is just the latest in a series of efforts by Rollins to turn conservation issues into culture-war fodder. Under her leadership, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, or USDA, has targeted federal funding for sustainable farming practices as well as programs that broaden farmers’ access to USDA support — terminating billions of dollars worth of grants on the grounds that such initiatives are what Rollins has called “woke” holdovers from the Biden administration.

Supporters of dam removal have reacted to Rollins’s intervention with incredulity.

“It’s not really even the federal government [opposing the agreement]. It’s a couple of MAGA extremists who happen to be government actors,” said U.S. Representative Jared Huffman, a Democrat who represents the area in Congress. “It’s sort of political theater masked as some sort of policy move that purports to be about taking over and operating this project, which is pretty preposterous.”

Rollins’s attempt to derail the Potter Valley deal has thrown the region’s future into question. Without an agreement, the Eel River and its surrounding environment will likely continue to deteriorate. The Round Valley tribe could sue to claim its senior rights over the river’s water, leading to prolonged litigation that could jeopardize water availability for nearby farms and cities. And water deliveries from the degraded reservoir will likely continue to be meager. More broadly, the development threatens a recent trend of negotiation and compromise in vulnerable watersheds across the country. The Potter Valley project is the latest in a series of dam removal agreements, from the Juniata River in Pennsylvania to the massive Klamath River dam removal on the California-Oregon border. These bipartisan agreements are fragile even in the best of times, but by politicizing the issue, Rollins may have made a permanent truce impossible.

Even though many farmers who receive water from the Potter Valley Project support the dam removal agreement, there are many local landowners and conservative residents who oppose it. One of the most vocal is a ranch-animal veterinarian named Rich Brazil, who lives in the small town of Potter Valley, just south of the main project dam. Brazil’s daughter, Keely Brazil Covello, is a filmmaker who writes a blog called America Unwon that advocates for farmers and ranchers. Her blog, which is ranked 44th on Substack’s “Climate & Environment” leaderboard, has publicized the perceived downsides of the deal and framed it as an existential threat to Potter Valley. 

“This will change the face of that area,” said Covello, who now lives in Southern California. “People need to know what’s happening.”

After PG&E secured the dam removal deal, Covello began writing frequently about the deal. In early September, Rollins retweeted one of Covello’s posts about Potter Valley with the caption, “I’m on it.” That month, Covello and her father helped organize a letter addressed to Rollins and seven other leaders in the Trump administration that urged the officials to reject the agreement as “inadequate, noncompliant with federal law, and dismissive of community and environmental consequences.” Rollins and Covello later engaged in what appeared to be a coordinated messaging campaign about the dam removal effort.

In the following months, Rollins held a series of meetings with Covello, Rich Brazil, and other local dam removal opponents, and posted to social media about how the state legislature and Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom are putting “fish over people” — a standard attack line used on environmental activists in California. In December, Rollins published a letter to the editor in a local newspaper, The Mendocino Voice, condemning the dam removal effort for its threat to farmers and ranchers in the region. 

Later that month, the agriculture secretary also filed a notice to intervene in the project proceedings as well as comments to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, the nation’s independent dam regulator, requesting that the commission suspend PG&E’s formal request to surrender its license for the dams. “If this plan goes through as proposed, it will devastate hundreds of family farms and wipe out more than a century of agricultural tradition in Potter Valley,” said Rollins in a statement. “This plan would put countless USDA investments at risk and leave families even more vulnerable to drought and wildfire.”

Multiple current and former USDA staffers and officials told Grist that the USDA’s arguments in its request to FERC appear to omit the conservation and environmental priorities of the agency’s mission areas. In it, the agency argued that the dam decommissioning would cause adverse impacts to many of USDA’s mission areas, claiming impacts across five of the USDA’s subagencies, including the U.S. Forest Service and the Natural Resources Conservation Service, or NRCS.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins delivers remarks to farmers from the Truman balcony of the White House as President Donald Trump looks on in Washington, D.C. Oliver Contreras / AFP via Getty Images

Erin Foster West, a former NRCS staffer who is now executive programs director at the National Young Farmers Coalition, said that while the NRCS and Forest Service have historically managed and worked to support very small dams, the Potter Valley Project appears to have no obvious connection to USDA’s operations. 

Gloria Montaño Greene, who served as deputy undersecretary of the USDA’s Farm Production and Conservation mission area during the Biden administration and was involved with the Klamath Dam removal, said these processes typically unfold very differently than the administration’s current approach — slowly, across multiple administrations, with a wide range of stakeholders at the table. The USDA’s public intervention here, she suggested, looks nothing like that. 

“What’s the NRCS saying? What’s the state of California saying? What are the tribal leads for the area saying? There are many voices in the conversation,” she said.

Answers to these questions have remained elusive, and the story has only gotten stranger. Covello, Brazil, and the other dam removal opponents met with USDA officials in January at the Farm Bureau convention in Anaheim and in Washington, D.C., a month later. Then, in late April, Rollins announced that an entity had emerged to buy the dams from PG&E: the Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District, a water service provider some 500 miles away in Riverside County. A member of the Elsinore Valley board appeared on Covello’s podcast and declared her ambition to take over the dams, framing it as an altruistic gesture that will protect water supply for all Californians.

“All of California benefits when there’s water and all of California is harmed when there’s not,” said Darcy Burke, the Elsinore Valley board member, when asked why she wanted to acquire the project. She admitted that “there might be no benefit” to her district and said that “we are just interested and doing our due diligence.” Burke added that she first learned about the dam removal deal when she read an X post from Chad Bianco, the Riverside County sheriff who is running for governor as a Republican.

Policymakers and environmentalists have blasted Elsinore Valley’s involvement as at best a political stunt and at worst a plan to siphon water from Northern California and deliver it farther south. There is no infrastructure that could convey water from Potter Valley down to Elsinore Valley, making a direct water transfer physically impossible, but that has not quelled suspicions. Huffman’s office has begun a formal investigation into Elsinore’s involvement. 

For Rollins, the political frenzy around the dam removal may be part of the point, according to Alicia Hamann, executive director of the environmental advocacy organization Friends of the Eel River.

“The involvement of this water district, nearly 600 miles away from the project, with no tangible connection to the power or the water associated with the project, is really bizarre,” said Hamann. She suspects that the administration could be using the case to appeal to farmers ahead of November’s midterm elections. Farmers, despite voting overwhelmingly for the GOP, have been increasingly dissatisfied with the administration’s trade policies and geopolitical conflicts roiling America’s farm economy. 

In response to inquiries from Grist, a USDA spokesperson reiterated Rollins’s position, saying that dam removal “is expected to create severe, lasting consequences for the region’s agricultural producers and surrounding communities.” The spokesperson added that removing the dams would harm water quality and compromise drinking water supplies, reduce firefighting capacity, and put groundwater wells at risk “while jeopardizing substantial USDA investments tied to loans, insurance programs, conservation work, and rural development.” The spokesperson also pointed to other “unresolved issues” but did not clarify them.

Rollins’s intervention has fractured the delicate consensus around the dam removal agreement, but no one involved seems to have any clue what will happen next. PG&E’s proposal to decommission the dams is still pending before FERC, and neither USDA nor Elsinore Valley has submitted a formal proposal to take them over.

In the meantime, the two sides of the debate have begun to exchange legal barbs. Friends of the Eel River and other environmental organizations submitted a public records request to the Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District on May 5. The request, a copy of which was shared with Grist, cites concerns that the water district’s decision to explore purchasing the dams from PG&E violates the Brown Act, a California law that requires local legislative bodies to conduct their business in public.

Elsinore Valley appears to be pushing back. That same week, the water district and the America First Policy Institute, a conservative think tank cofounded by Rollins herself in 2021, began to file a torrent of their own public records requests to organizations that were involved in dam removal talks. While some of these were governmental agencies that are legally required to respond to such requests, others were private sector actors that are typically not subject to the law, like the conservation nonprofit CalTrout. The request to CalTrout, a copy of which was shared with Grist, sought all electronic communications concerning the Potter Valley Project; all records, internal documents, and funding applications; and all communications shared with a variety of related entities and agencies. 

“We are not a public agency. So we were really confused we got it,” said Charlie Schneider, a project lead at the nonprofit. “What are they even after is hard to understand, right?” 

Just days later, however, the America First Policy Institute rescinded its request. (The Institute declined to respond to a request for comment, instead directing Grist to the nonprofit’s public comment submitted to FERC opposing the dam removal.) 

The most important local player in the Potter Valley conflict is the Round Valley Indian Tribe, which has senior rights to the water from the Eel River, meaning it could, in theory, assert a claim to the water that farmers and cities who rely on the Potter Valley Project are now using. The tribe has been pushing dam removal for generations, and the PG&E agreement was only possible thanks to their cooperation. They will allow farmers who got water from the dams to receive some of their Eel River water through a new diversion tunnel, and in exchange, the farmers will give the tribe money for ecosystem restoration. 

Read Next How the Klamath Dams Came Down Anita Hofschneider & Jake Bittle

In an interview with Grist, tribal president Joseph Parker vowed to claim his tribe’s water rights if USDA continued to block the removal deal. This would mean a lengthy adjudication of the Eel River’s water rights, which could block Elsinore or any farmers downstream from taking water from the dams even if they did stay in place.

“We talked to USDA, we told them our story, and they listened, but you could tell they didn’t want to listen,” said Parker. “[The farmers] have been getting free water this whole hundred-plus years. Hopefully they know that we aren’t backing down and that we’re here for the long fight.” The tribe has addressed letters to both Rollins and Elsinore warning them about “the potential liabilities that any successor owner of these dams will likely face, and the resolve of our people to oppose their retention.”

Meanwhile, locals who have come to support the agreement argue that there’s no alternative to dam removal now that PG&E has decided to offload the project.

“If anybody had asked me ten years ago what would happen if [the Project] was gone I would have said it would be disastrous,” said Janet Pauli, a grape and hay farmer who is one of Potter Valley’s largest landowners and the head of the irrigation district representing most of the area’s farmers. “But that was then, and this is now.” Pauli helped secure the 2025 agreement in exchange for water diversion that would supply farms and cities downstream from Potter Valley during the winter.

Livestock graze on a patch of field not flooded by a swollen Eel River in Ferndale, California, in 2024. Stephen Lam / San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images

Pauli also argues that it’s possible to mitigate the negative effects of dam removal for local farmers in Potter Valley by expanding a nearby dam on the Russian River and building other water storage projects in the valley. She said that opponents of dam removal haven’t been advocating for those projects, which would make the area more self-reliant.

Covello and the other opponents of dam removal don’t believe that those replacement projects for Potter Valley will ever be built, or that the winter water diversions from the Eel River will come to fruition. She also said she’s heard from both tribal members in the area and employees at PG&E that dam removal will offer far fewer benefits than proponents claim.

“It’s not gonna happen, and it’s not gonna work,” she said. “What we have works right now, and California can’t build anything to save its life.”

A spokesperson for PG&E said the utility had tried multiple times to find a buyer for the dam and is moving forward with decommissioning. The spokesperson said that there has been “misinformation” about the utility’s role and the availability of alternatives to dam removal. “There is a significant difference between an entity inquiring about the Potter Valley Project and actually submitting a proposal to acquire the project,” the spokesperson said in an apparent reference to Elsinore Valley’s overtures. 

Keeping the dams up would be an enormous challenge, even if Elsinore Valley succeeds in acquiring them. By all accounts, the Potter Valley Project is in terrible condition. The hydroelectric power house broke down in 2021, and the diversion tunnel from the dams sits on a seismic fault zone capable of triggering a major earthquake. Furthermore, the dams are out of compliance with federal environmental laws around fish passage and water quality. Upgrading them to meet all these conditions would take hundreds of millions of dollars.

FERC, for its part, appears to be moving forward with the Potter Valley dam license surrender and decommissioning in lieu of any viable alternative. On May 22, the agency kicked off its environmental assessment of the Potter Valley removal project by releasing its first National Environmental Policy Act scoping document. That document calls dam retention “infeasible” because of seismic stability concerns, fruitless past efforts to find an operator for the project, and PG&E’s preferred alternative to remove the structure. 

“FERC is saying, ‘There’s nothing else in front of us to assess,’” said CalTrout’s Schenider. “It’s certainly helpful [in] understanding where things are actually at.” 

Even though they’re on opposite sides of California’s traditional conservation debate, which pits environmentalists who want to keep water in rivers against farmers who want to use it, Schneider agrees with Pauli, the local grape and hay farmer who thinks dam removal is the best path forward for the community.

“For USDA, some funding support for those farmers … strikes me as a much better use of their time and energy than trying to save 100-year-old dams that are eventually going to fill with sediment,” he said.

Kyle Farmer, a farmer and rancher who lives in Potter Valley, said the truth is far more nuanced than the fish-versus-people framing that Rollins has adopted. He once fought to preserve the dam, but now he views the big challenge in Potter Valley as finding a way to make farmers and residents whole once the dams inevitably go down. 

“It would be great if this was a fish-versus-farmer problem, because there is a lot of precedent on how to handle those,” he said. “What we haven’t made much progress on is how to replace aging infrastructure. This is more like a town whose bridge is failing.”

This story has been updated to include Darcy Burke’s full name and affiliation.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Why is this Trump official dead set on saving a failing California dam? on Jun 2, 2026.

Electric vehicles offer many opportunities to save money: on gas, on oil changes, on engine maintenance. But, it turns out, insurance isn’t one of them. In fact, the latest data shows that EVs typically cost $3,159 per year to insure — nearly $1,000 more than gas-powered cars. It’s an added burden that could make the payback period on EVs significantly longer. 

On average, the insurance gap between electric and internal combustion engine, or ICE, vehicles was 42 percent, according to a report released today by the insurance-comparison marketplace Insurify. But it varies drastically by state and model. The most expensive locale was Washington, D.C., where coverage cost $6,394 versus $4,124 for ICE cars. Maine was the cheapest at $1,476, just $184 more than a conventional car. The difference was most pronounced in Rhode Island, which has a 73 percent spread.

Generally speaking, luxury brands like Tesla, Mercedes-Benz, and Audi are particularly expensive to insure, with premiums on many models topping $4,000. Volvo, Chevrolet, Ford, and Hyundai offer cars at the lower end of the spectrum. Insurify wouldn’t disclose which insurers had the most expensive rates, but did say Lemonade, Root, and GEICO offered the most affordable EV coverage. 

“Insurers were charging those higher premiums to balance their risks,” said Julia Taliesin, an economic analyst and insurance agent at Insurify, who wrote the report. It is based on more than 235 million quotes in Insurify’s proprietary database. Seven states — Alaska, Hawai‘i, North Dakota, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming — are excluded due to lower quoting volume. But high insurance expenses means it can take more driving before an EV pays for itself through lower fuel and operating costs. Even if electricity were free and gas stays at $4 per gallon it translates to at least 5,800 more miles a year compared to a car that gets 25 mpg. 

A primary reason for the disparity is that EVs cost more to fix. 

“We do see that there is a delta in the cost of repair for electric vehicles compared to ICE,” said Ryan Mandell, a vice president of strategy and market intelligence at Mitchell, a company which provides data and software related to car repairs. He pegs the difference at about 15 percent, noting that batteries are relatively expensive to fix and for mechanics to work around and that EVs have complicated electronics. But there are more fundamental factors as well, like the lack of an engine. 

Mandell gave the Ford F-150 as an example. From 2022 to 2025 an electric version of the pickup truck, called the Lightning, was available alongside gas-only and hybrid versions. When Mitchell subjected the gasoline and EV models to a front-end crash test the engine in the traditional model actually absorbed quite a bit of the impact. Because it doesn’t have that additional structure, Ford designed the Lightning with additional reinforcement that cost around 30 percent more to fix.

Read Next Why $4 gasoline is the tipping point for EVs Tik Root

“The Lightning had more crash parts on the front of the vehicle,” said Mandell. He also noted that Ford requires removing the battery before doing any work, which increases labor costs. “It adds up.”

Repair costs, however, are not the only factor insurers consider. Insurify’s data showed insurance rates for the two trucks are roughly the same, which Taliesin said suggests driver demographics and behavior play a role, too. “One of the most significant is personal driving history and credit history,” she said. Given the Lightning’s much higher cost, the credit scores of owners could potentially be higher. And Insurify’s data shows that the ticket and accident rates for Lightning drivers are about half that of traditional F-150s.

“Factors like climate risk, vehicle theft rates, population density, insurance regulation, repair infrastructure, and EV adoption levels contribute to regional cost differences,” the Insurify report stated. In several states it cited climate-driven extreme weather, such as hurricanes and flooding, as drivers of high costs. 

This EV insurance story isn’t unique to the United States. In 2024, BloombergNEF found about the same spread in the United Kingdom and Germany. France saw double the disparity. Overall, though, American EV owners still paid 87 percent more for insurance than Europeans. 

“Several model-specific factors have driven the wider cost gaps in the large and SUV segments,” said Aleksandra O’Donovan, head of electrified transport at BloombergNEF, pointing to the Tesla Model Y as a particularly extreme example. “[The U.S. price] is nearly triple the insurance rate for the same vehicle in Germany.”

From 2023 to 2025, the EV insurance gap in the U.S. grew from 29 percent to 49 percent. But this year, it came down slightly, which Taliesin said is among a few good signs for EV drivers. Another is that the disparity among cars made in the last two years was only 18 percent — compared 42 percent across all years. 

That drop is partly because auto insurance prices fell across the board in the last year. But Taliesin also said that ICE cars are catching up to EVs in terms of how complicated and expensive they are to fix. The cost of EV batteries is also trending downward, too. As EV sales have grown, there is more data for companies to base their prices on and more incentive for them to court EV owners.

”We’ve been seeing a ton of insurance-shopping behavior as insurers have been dropping their rates to compete for business,” said Taliesin, who is bullish for consumers. “That’s definitely a welcome reprieve.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The hidden cost of owning an EV: Expensive insurance on Jun 2, 2026.

For the construction of the technical and political foundations, a team of agroecology experts from the movements, representing all regions of Brazil, has been established.

The post Brazil: The MST and Allies are Building a Social Movement-led AI Tool (IARAA) for Agroecology appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

Clean electricity isn’t just about climate — it’s about Canada’s security, economy, and independence in an unstable world....

A sidewalk is more than just a strip of asphalt. It’s a place where countless laws collide. Those laws govern our movement, our safety, our right to free speech and our economy. They dictate who exactly is responsible for shoveling snow after a blizzard. But most communities don’t have a single agency that manages all of these competing concerns — and maybe it’s time they create one. 

Today on The Brake, we interview sidewalk law expert Michael Pollack about his new book “Sidewalk Nation: The Life and Law of America’s Most Overlooked Resource.” And in that book, he untangles the dense web of policies that shape our pedestrian spaces, which might just change the way you look at sidewalks forever. 

For an unedited transcript of this conversation (with AI typos), click here.

The company that makes the illegal stand-up electric scooter used by one of the victims of last week’s deadly head-on collision on the Queensboro Bridge bike path has added a warning label on its website after reviewers alerted the manufacturer to Streetsblog’s coverage.

Teverun — which makes the Blade GT II on which Francis Delvalle was riding on May 28 when he smashed into Dmytro Stechenko, killing them both — has since added some fine print to its website:

“All TEVERUN scooters are shipped with a speed limit of 25 km/h [15 miles per hour] for public roads. Unrestricted mode is for private or off-road use only. Always comply with local laws and wear protective gear,” it reads (you can see the small warning at the top of the webpage … if you squint).

The disclaimer could be a move to shift liability from the company to the consumer in the aftermath of the high-profile crash, one lawyer suspected.

“It’s a bit of an acknowledgement that these scooters are dangerous on the roads at higher speeds,” said Peter Beadle, a bike lawyer and a safe-streets advocate.

The scooter maker’s website added a disclaimer that the Blade GT’s 53-mph mode is not street-legal. But it still markets it as an “urban wolf.”

After Streetsblog reported the make and model of the scooter and pointed out that the device is illegal to operate on all New York City streets and bike paths, people began flooding the comment section with links to our coverage.

“You will die and kill someone else too,” one commenter, Eric, wrote before giving the scooter one-star and linking to Streetsblog.

“Perfect killing machine,” posted “Tom Smith.” “Great for killing myself and others! Just wish it could go even faster so I could end more lives.”

Scooter companies commonly falsely advertise their devices as legal by offering buyers the option of shifting to a different “mode” to violate speed limits or city rules. Many online retailers sell scooters and e-motos with “off-road” modes, as Streetsblog reported last year.

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The details of the state’s vehicle and traffic code don’t clearly draw a line on mode shifting. But another factor that affects the legality of an electric two-wheeler is the wattage of the motor. The VTL clearly states that bicycles with electric assist must have a motor with 750 watts of power or less. Vehicles that can be shifted into “off-road” modes with high speeds will inevitably have motors with greater wattage.

For example, the brand Ride1Up specifically calls its vehicles “moped-style e-bikes.” On its website, the company clarifies that a “moped-style e-bike” has “programming and motor capabilities that allow for a higher top speed than class 3 e-bike regulations allow. The company then adds a disclaimer that it’s only for a private course. Ride1Up markets it as a Class 2 e-bike, which legally can reach 20 miles per hour with the throttle. But the motor is 1,820 watts, which exceeds the 750-watt limit, making it illegal to ride regardless of mode.

Our Revv1 … is pre-programmed as a Class 2 e-bike, so you can ride most anywhere at 20 miles-per-hour with throttle and pedal assist. However, you can unlock the programming to reach speeds north of 28 mph. This is intended for private property only.

This agile and robust bike is tough enough to cope with the most demanding of rides. However, with its practical and sturdy design, it remains suited to any rider with a comfortable saddle, upright riding position and throttle forward use-case that provides a boost up to twenty-eight MPH or more when unlocked for “Off-Road Mode.”

The brand Ride1Up calls this a “moped-style” e-bike. Its motor is too big to be legal.

The state’s traffic code does not specify a wattage cutoff for e-scooters. But companies selling them must display maximum speed and wattage on a sticker for both scooters and e-bikes. Still, the city’s own educational materials state that the max speed capability for a stand up electric scooter is 20 miles per hour.

It’s very difficult for police officers to, at a glance, know which motorized two-wheeled vehicle is a legal electric bike or an illegal e-moto, though police agencies in Europe, where e-bikers are common and provided ample space where their riders do not have to compete with cars, don’t seem to have this problem.

Beadle pointed out that although the company added a small disclaimer to the site about its modes, the page still reads as an advertisement for the fastest settings.

“The problem is that, some of these bikes and scooters can have their modes changed so easily that of course users are going to change the mode, it’s part of the marketing,” he said.

The site still advertises the scooter as “built for street dominance” and focuses on the scooter’s max speed. The site also specifically addresses safety, saying “speed is thrilling but safety comes first,” before encouraging riders to wear a helmet (as both victims of last week’s crash were). The website also clearly markets the scooter for city use:

Its 11-inch puncture-resistant tires, high-torque motor, and stable suspension allow it to tackle uneven roads, steep inclines, and urban obstacles with ease. Whether it’s potholes, gravel, or curbs, this scooter maintains smooth, controlled performance.

“That’s not marketing to a 15-mph scooter. That’s marketing to the 53-mph,” said Beadle.

• Drunk driving kills more than 12,000 people a year in the U.S., mostly in car-centric places with little to no public transit. Studies show that there are far fewer DUI arrests in cities where imbibers can take a train home. There is a similar effect where rideshares are readily available. (Planetizen)
• People for Bikes breaks down its position on the BUILD America 250 transportation funding bill.
• Five years after the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act put $5 billion toward electric vehicle charging stations, only 98 have been built. (Government Technology)
• While raging against dangerous drivers can be cathartic, sustained activism is what actually gets things done, according to a streets.mn writer.
• Americans seem to love everything about trains except riding them. (USA Today)
• Active Towns interviewed Sara Lind, co-director of Streetsblog’s parent nonprofit Open Plans. (YouTube)
• California regulators changed the state’s cap-and-trade program in ways that will benefit fossil fuel companies. (Los Angeles Times)
• The Urbanist further explores Sound Transit’s recent vote to delay or cut back on future transit projects.
• Assaults on Charlotte trains and buses fell by 67 percent through the first three months of this year compared to the first quarter of 2025. (WFAE)
• The Utah Transit Authority further reduced fares for the elderly, but made them more complicated to pay. (Salt Lake Tribune)
• A new Maryland law opens up 300 acres of state-owned land near transit stations for developing 7,000 housing units. (Smart Cities Dive)
• Light rail on the I-5 bridge between Portland and Vancouver, Washington remains up in the air. (The Oregonian)
• The president of Cornell University backed his car into a group of students who questioned him about free speech. (The Ringer)
• Missoula won an award for best transit system of its size. (Metro)
• Backlash against bike lanes and low-emissions zones led Krakow voters to elect a new right-wing mayor. (Politico)
• Italian cities are trying to make public spaces more equitable toward women. (24 Italy)

Nurses at Saint Mary of Nazareth Hospital in Chicago, Ill. gave notice to their employer today that they will hold a strike for one day on June 11 to protest the administration’s retaliation against nurses who speak out about unsafe conditions.

This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections

Thanks to the transition from fossil fuels to clean technologies, what used to be considered the worst-case climate change scenario now appears to be outside the realm of plausibility, climate scientists said in a recent study.

That study made headlines in May when President Donald Trump falsely claimed that climate scientists had admitted that their projections had been wrong, a claim akin to an anti-vaxxer gloating that the official end of the pandemic proved that COVID was never a problem.

And the study contained sobering news: The best-case climate scenario is close to slipping out of reach, and a business-as-usual scenario is still a very dangerous one, with high risks of widespread species extinctions, extreme heat-related illnesses and deaths, and expanding vector-borne diseases like malaria.

World makes progress on climate change

Scientists developed the worst-case climate change scenario known as RCP8.5 nearly 20 years ago.

A 2010 paper described RCP8.5 as representing the 90th percentile of plausible climate-warming emissions, cautioning that the RCPs “are neither forecasts nor policy recommendations, but were chosen to map a broad range of climate outcomes.” A 2011 paper summarizing RCP8.5 noted that this scenario envisioned a world with high population growth, slow improvements in energy efficiency, and a heavy reliance on fossil fuels, including a nearly tenfold increase in coal consumption.

Although the U.S. government under Trump favors high birth rates, has dismantled energy efficiency programs, and supports coal and other fossil fuels, policies implemented around the world over the past decade have shifted us away from the characteristics of RCP8.5, leading scientists to say it is now implausible.

Spurred by the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement and dramatically falling costs of clean energy technologies, many countries have increasingly transitioned away from climate-warming fossil fuels. All global growth in electricity demand last year was met by clean sources – predominantly solar panels – European energy think tank Ember and the International Energy Agency recently reported.

Change in annual global electricity demand (blue line) and the amount met by fossil fuels (gray bars), solar power (dark green bars), and other clean sources (light green bars) between 2000 and 2025. (Graphic: Ember)

Clean energy has gotten a boost from the Iran conflict, which spiked prices of fossil fuels and spurred many countries to accelerate their efforts to wean themselves off oil and natural gas. China’s exports of solar panels, batteries, and electric vehicles to many regions, including Southeast Asia and Latin America, have surged. And the International Energy Agency has said that the world has reached peak coal consumption.

Read: What the Iran conflict means for gas prices, clean energy, and the climate

Annual electric vehicle sales in China (red), Europe (dark blue), the U.S. (light blue), and the rest of the world (green). (Data: International Energy Agency. Graphic: Dana Nuccitelli)

New climate scenarios

Because the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is heading into its next cycle of climate change reports, a group of scientists called the Scenario Model Intercomparison Project was tasked with establishing an updated set of emissions scenarios. In the new paper, they outline six new scenarios ranging from a best-case “very low emission scenario” to a worst-case “high-emission scenario.”

Their scenarios show that meeting the climate targets set in the 2015 Paris Agreement is becoming increasingly difficult as the years pass and global emissions continue to rise. A middle-of-the-road scenario involving continued climate policies would result in high risks of dangerous outcomes like extreme weather-related deaths and widespread species extinctions.

And a new worst-case scenario involving a Trump-style rollback of climate policies would likely result in catastrophic climate change.

The good, the bad, and the ugly

The new high-emission scenario envisions that many countries could weaken or abandon climate policies. The researchers’ description of this scenario may sound familiar to some Americans, suggesting that “a rollback of climate policies could result from a lack of public support for the energy transition. This could be related to, for instance, local opposition to building new wind farms or concerns about impacts on fossil industries related to jobs and national energy security.”

Climate scientists Zeke Hausfather, Glen Peters, and Piers Forster described this scenario as “a more Trumpian future where current policy is rolled back and clean energy deployment slows.”

In this scenario, atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations rise from about 430 parts per million today to around 700 parts per million in 2100, when temperatures reach about 3.5°C above preindustrial levels, up from about 1.3°C today. That outcome would still likely represent a climate catastrophe, but it’s less severe than the 936 parts per million and nearly 5°C global warming that would have resulted from RCP8.5 by 2100.

The new medium-emission scenario and very-low emission scenario have fairly similar carbon dioxide and global warming trajectories to their previous counterparts, called RCP4.5 and RCP2.6, respectively.

Global average surface temperature change in the old scenarios (solid lines) and new scenarios (dashed lines). (Graphic: Dana Nuccitelli).

The new medium-emission scenario envisions that climate policies continue at the current level. Climate pollution declines slightly into the middle of the century and then remains flat thereafter, resulting in an extremely dangerous 3°C global warming by 2100.

And the new very-low emission scenario illustrates the increasingly difficult challenge of meeting the Paris Agreement to limit global warming to “well below 2°C above preindustrial levels.” Achieving that goal would require rapid reductions in global climate pollution starting today, reaching net-zero emissions around 2050. The previous best-case scenario allowed for a more gradual emissions reduction, not approaching net zero until the 2070s, because there was more time left when it was developed.