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Without Prop. 40 revenues, Californians could face hospital closures, job losses, increased food insecurity, and state budget cuts to public schools, yet tech billionaires are pouring millions into opposing the wealth tax.

A renewables developer with four grid-scale battery projects currently under development in Australia has been acquired by a Singapore based asset owner.

The post Singapore asset manager snaps up one of Australia’s leading renewable energy and storage developers appeared first on Renew Economy.

Dan Tehan's attempt to win the climate wars carried a whiff of napalm - dropped on the Opposition itself, and of course the industry.

The post Coalition’s pursuit of Agent Orange climate policies will deliver an investment apocalypse soon enough appeared first on Renew Economy.

Plans to build a 1,561 km gas pipeline from the NT Beetaloo Basin to south-east Queensland could cost as much as $9.74 billion, a new report has found, adding huge costs to a heavily polluting project.

The post Cost of “preposterous” fracked gas pipeline could balloon to $10 billion, locking in higher bills for decades appeared first on Renew Economy.

A fundamental challenge of the energy transition risks being overlooked: managing complexity. But this is where two decades of investment in quantum could start to pay off.

The post Why Australia’s energy transition needs quantum in the mix appeared first on Renew Economy.

The most important imperative for Australia is to get rid of diesel. It is a no brainer for the economy, for national security and the environment. But there is no policy.

The post Australia can gain more from eliminating diesel than enabling AI appeared first on Renew Economy.

Contracts awarded for the biggest new wind project in Australia for more than two years, which is expecting to begin construction soon.

The post Key contracts awarded for Australia’s biggest wind project in more than two years appeared first on Renew Economy.

State government says it has no plans to water down or pause a regulated phaseout of gas from homes and businesses, despite the bidding of one of Australia's largest gas infrastructure corporations.

The post Gas lobby bid to halt home electrification falls flat as Labor says it will stay the course appeared first on Renew Economy.

Lock the Gate Alliance says Santos CEO Kevin Gallagher’s admission that the Narrabri gas project will be economically unviable without high gas prices should prompt the NSW Government to withdraw its support for the project. 

A new report by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) calls a plan to spend $54 million of Utah public funds on coal export terminals in Oakland, California, and Longview, Washington, “a high-risk gamble to spend … money on out-of-state projects that could leave rural Utah with limited economic benefits — even if the coal terminals are eventually built.”

EEFA analyzed a recent report commissioned by the Rural Utah Infrastructure Coalition (RUIC) which recommended investing 80% of the funds ($43.2M) in Oakland and the remainder in Longview. IEEFA’s verdict is summed up in the title of its report, “Extensive financial risks and delays loom as Utah considers investing in coal export terminals that would divert funding from in-state needs.”

Ironically, the report commissioned by RUIC to justify investment in coal export terminals is full of red flags in IEEFA’s view:

The [Norda Stelo] report details a multitude of risks for investing in these projects, including:

• Far higher costs, hundreds of millions of dollars more than estimated by advocates
• Construction timelines at least two to three years longer than currently stated
• Lack of well-capitalized, experienced investors, including mining companies, commodity trading firms, or railroads that could see these projects through
• The very early-stage engineering status of the projects, especially Longview, greatly increasing the odds of delays and cost overruns
• Many potential bottlenecks that could sharply curtail export tonnage, including rail congestion, limited and inflexible terminal space, and loading equipment limitations
• International coal market risks
• Organized and influential state and local opposition in both California and Washington that has stopped previously proposed coal export projects

The report by the IEEFA, “which provides independent, evidence-based financial analysis of global energy markets, investment trends, and policies,” aligns closely with analysis of the Norda Stelo report published by No Coal in Oakland on September 8, 2026.

Though it matters very much to West Oakland residents and workers, the IEEFA didn’t comment on the open air stockpiles in which terminal operators plan to store as much as 300,000 tons of coal on the proposed terminal site — scrapping the empty promises and implications in conceptual drawings and legal filings with which developers marketed their dystopian project 8-11 years ago. It’s fair to assume that this looming threat flew under the IEEFA’s radar because the health and safety of Californians is not the State of Utah’s financial concern.

On the other hand, the IEEFA report details project risks that No Coal in Oakland did not raise in its ‘hot off the press’ analysis of the $488,000 RUIC-commissioned study.

For example, IEEFA cited the risk of increase in the already jaw-dropping OBOT construction cost estimate floated by Norda Stelo, reasoning that there are “significant and interrelated risk factors: additional equipment and construction cost inflation, unforeseen engineering challenges, rising interest rates, […] project delays [, and] the extremely limited size of the coal terminal site…”

IEEFA also called out “lack of well-capitalized, experienced investors” as a “financial red flag”; and the Norda Stelo admission that “rail congestion associated with BNSF and UP services to Californian west coast ports is increasing, with dwell times exceeding eight days at several ports” and “two rail bottlenecks near the Donner Pass that have ‘single-track tunnels with potential waiting and weather / rockslide / washout stoppages.’”

The independent IEEFA report then ends with a bang:

At this early stage of development, and given the absence of solid commitments from any financially strong and experienced commercial backers, these projects pose substantial risks to the RUIC’s money—risks that should not be borne by rural citizens of Utah.

The question now is whether Utah’s Community Impact Board (CIB) — the government entity that will decide whether or not to fund the risk-riddled OBOT project — will be gulled by RUIC’s smoke-and-mirror application for over $50,000,000 in public money … or whether they will act in the best interest of the people of Utah.

Stay tuned. The CIB meets next on October 1st, and it’s not yet clear whether they will evaluate the application for funding out-of-state coal terminals at that meeting, or whether RUIC will engineer a delay as the coalition of mining counties licks the wounds inflicted on its case by the IEEFA report.

 

A full PDF version of the IEEFA report is available here.

Image: State Capitol of Utah. Image credit: Strobel Adventures, via Wikimedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Original Power is leading a push to protect people using prepaid meters from being disconnected when temperatures rise above 40ºC.

The post Inside the fight to stop prepaid disconnections | Solar Insiders appeared first on Renew Economy.

Swedish floating wind innovator may build a 20 MW demonstration project in Australia using its unique vertical-axis turbines.

The post Vertical-axis floating wind turbines may be tested in Australian offshore renewable zone appeared first on Renew Economy.

Origin Energy, the country's biggest retailer and already the owner of the biggest gas generation portfolio, unveils plans for one of the biggest peaking plants in Australia.

The post Origin dusts off plan for one of Australia’s biggest peaking power plants, using gas and diesel appeared first on Renew Economy.

Birds connect territories. They can also connect the people who live in them, their knowledge, and the different ways of building opportunities through conservation.With that idea in mind, members of...

Germany wants to stop using fossil fuels in its energy sector by 2045 at the latest, with plans for how to do that set out in the country’s transition roadmap published on Wednesday on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York. 

The blueprint focuses on electrifying transport, home heating and industry, while gradually replacing fossil fuel power generation with renewables. Renewables supplied about 55% of Germany’s electricity last year and the government wants that to reach at least 80% by 2030.

All coal-fired power stations – which generated almost a quarter of Germany’s electricity in 2025 – must close by 2038 at the latest. That deadline has been set in German law since 2020, but the roadmap says the government is exploring the possibility of bringing the end date forward to 2035.

New gas-fired plants that receive state funding must be “hydrogen-ready” and run on climate-neutral fuels by 2045. The roadmap does not specify what those fuels are but they generally include biofuels and green hydrogen. 

At the same time, Berlin wants to install 2,000 more wind turbines and reduce the need for power plants by boosting the use of batteries. 

UN SUMMIT LIVE: UN chief says world has tools to end the fossil fuel age

Speaking at the UN chief’s climate summit in New York, environment minister Carsten Schneider said the plan will allow Germany to lower its imports of fossil fuels and reduce its dependence on “supply chains vulnerable to geopolitical crisis” – and called on more countries to do the same.

“It is important to ensure that transitioning away from fossil fuels remains high up on the international agenda,” he said, adding that Germany would seek to “improve the overall framework” for mobilising more funds to help developing countries phase out fossil fuels.

“We want to enable countries to chart their own course towards energy security and prosperity,” he said.

On Tuesday, addressing the UN General Assembly, UN Secretary-General António Guterres urged all countries to submit national roadmaps to end the production and consumption of fossil fuels with “clear timelines and protection for affected workers and communities”.

A group of around 80 countries led a failed push at last year’s COP30 in Belém to create a global roadmap on transitioning away from fossil fuels. While the initiative was not adopted at the summit, some countries like France and the Netherlands opted to move forward with their own national plans.

• Sep 22, 2026 Energy UN chief urges countries to adopt fossil fuel transition plans with timelines In his last speech to the UN General Assembly, António Guterres for the first time called on every nation to deliver a plan to phase out coal, oil and gas while protecting workers Read more
• Sep 23, 2026 Justice Despite “real progress”, third of countries still lack early warning systems About 60 nations have yet to put in place a multi-hazard early warning system to protect people from disasters before they happen, the UN says Read more

Subsidies for EVs and heat pumps

To cut reliance on petrol for transport, the German government says it will make available 2.8 billion euros to subsidise the cost of buying electric vehicles for lower and middle income households.

Official projections suggest that by 2035, every new car sold in Germany will be electric, according to the document. Freight, shipping and aviation are expected to shift to a mix of electric vehicles, “sustainable” biofuels and hydrogen-based fuels. 

For homes, the roadmap relies mainly on replacing gas and oil boilers with heat pumps, backed by state subsidies. Anyone who installs a new gas or oil heating system will have to use a rising share of “climate-neutral fuels” from 2029, reaching 60% by 2040. A proposed quota would require fuel suppliers to switch entirely to climate-neutral heating fuels from 2045. 

Industry is expected to decarbonise by switching to electricity and hydrogen, becoming more energy efficient, and capturing carbon where emissions are hard to avoid.

UN backs push to upgrade grids slowing clean power uptake in Africa and SE Asia

Schneider said the roadmap is not just a climate strategy, but also an economic policy strategy. “The money we currently spend on importing oil and gas will increasingly flow into local value creation,” he added in a written statement. “Moving away from fossil fuels combines independence, affordability and climate protection”. 

In 2024, Germany spent about 76 billion euros on importing fossil fuels. Around two-thirds of that went on oil and petroleum products, and the rest on gas and coal.

Campaigners call for faster phase-out

Reactions to the roadmap from analysts and campaigners were mixed – both praising the country’s initiative for launching its plan voluntarily but also calling for an even faster fossil fuel phase-out.

Jennifer Morgan, former German climate envoy, said the roadmap is a “welcome step” but to truly deliver, the strategy should be backed by “a faster, more deliberate and just phase-out, paired with the rollout of green electrification”. 

Laurie Van Der Burg, public finance lead at campaign group Oil Change International, said Germany deserves credit for publishing the roadmap, but its efforts are “not commensurate with the reality of the crisis, or its responsibility as a wealthy, historic emitter”. She urged the country to end its financing for fossil fuels, strengthen the roadmap and redirect public money toward renewable energy. 

Germany is the third European country to publish a national fossil fuel transition roadmap following France and the Netherlands. France has set end dates for coal (2030), oil (2045) and gas (2050), though its plan mostly brings together existing policies. The Dutch government has not set a binding end date for the country’s fossil fuel production and use, indicating only that it should be “minimised” by 2050. 

Linda Kalcher, executive director at think-tank Strategic Perspectives, said the targets in the three national roadmaps still fall short of what is needed to achieve energy security, but they still send a powerful message to fossil fuel exporters. “A huge share of the European market is planning for a future in which demand for coal, oil and gas declines,” she added. 

The post Germany unveils plan to end use of fossil fuels in energy sector by 2045 appeared first on Climate Home News.

Updated on September 23 to include links and additional information. Originally published on January 16, 2026.

For advocates working at the intersection of environmental protection and climate-smart growth, the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) has long been a source of both pride and frustration. While it has been a critical tool to protect our natural and working lands, its procedural delays have often been used to stall projects essential to a low-carbon future: dense infill housing and transit-oriented development in our existing communities.

In July 2025, however, at the urging of Governor Newsom, the California legislature passed some of the most impactful changes to CEQA since its inception. Taken together, the two bills (AB 130 and SB 131) provide robust statutory CEQA exemptions for infill housing and housing element rezonings, require the state to map infill areas where exemptions would apply, and narrow the scope of the administrative record, helping to curtail anti-housing litigation.

Read my Op-Ed on the East Bay Times on why Prop 45 is a ruse handing shortcuts to polluters disguised as relief.

Despite these monumental changes that address the barriers to critical infill development, California’s business lobby and sprawl developers were left unsatisfied. Now, they are proposing a ballot initiative that would make far more radical changes to the law. After gathering enough signatures to qualify for the November ballot, this is now called Proposition 45.

While the rhetoric of the measure (initially called Building an Affordable California Act, or BACA) seems to be aligned with urbanist goals and those of the broader abundance and affordability movements, the actual policy details and mechanics of the initiative—and the progress we’ve already achieved in the legislature last year—suggest that the costs it brings far outweigh any potential benefits.

Below, we outline seven reasons why the measure should be rejected (click to read more):

1. Major Reforms Have Already Been Enacted

For years, a primary objective for California’s urbanists was to stop the abuse of environmental law against projects that genuinely help the environment: dense, transit-oriented housing.
In a landmark shift for the state, that goal has largely been realized. Following years of advocacy by urbanists, the legislature passed a clean statutory CEQA exemption for infill housing. AB 130, which Greenbelt Alliance was proud to support, is already being utilized across California, allowing builders to move forward with climate-friendly housing in high-opportunity areas like Palo Alto or Beverly Hills without the threat of being endlessly delayed by the environmental review process. While there is room for technical refinements, the fundamental issue at hand—the misuse of environmental laws to delay environmentally-friendly housing projects—has largely been addressed.

2. Everything is “Essential”

As the saying goes, “the devil is in the details”, and that’s certainly true for the BACA initiative. While modest on the surface, BACA creates a completely new set of rules for what it calls “essential” projects. So what, exactly, is an “essential project”?

The list is incredibly broad. Under Article 2, Section 21013, “essential projects” include housing, water, transportation, clean energy, transmission, broadband, and healthcare infrastructure. In practice, this definition encompasses a wide range of large-scale developments. For example, new freeways and existing freeway expansions would qualify as “essential transportation” projects; large greenfield sprawl developments would be treated as “essential” housing projects; and new dams and reservoirs would qualify as “essential” water projects. The definition even includes all “related and ancillary infrastructure,” meaning that highway interchanges, utility extensions, and water pipelines that enable sprawl developments also receive streamlined approval. All of these are enormous projects in terms of size and scale, with major potential environmental impacts. Yet, just like an apartment building in an urban area, under BACA, they would qualify for a significantly truncated review process.

In effect, this new CEQA process mirrors the fundamental flaw of its predecessor. While the old system failed to exempt low or no-impact projects from excessive review, the new one errs in the opposite direction, fast-tracking high-risk developments with significant potential for harm.

3. All Timelines Are Not Created Equal

The BACA initiative imposes strict timelines for this new class of projects that it deems “essential”: the environmental review process can take no more than one year. On the surface, a one-year limit on an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) seems reasonable. And for certain projects, like an apartment building on a parking lot in downtown San Francisco, or a townhome development in an LA suburb, it would be.

However, the measure’s definition of “essential” includes highways, dams, large-scale subdivisions, and other major projects. The environmental review required for projects at this scale cannot be done in a single year. Surveying hundreds if not thousands (or even tens of thousands) of acres of undisturbed and undeveloped land for species nesting patterns and habitat, water pollution impacts, and other environmental concerns physically cannot be accomplished within the timeframe laid out in the initiative. By forcing these projects into such a condensed timeline, we will be creating a system that overlooks genuine environmental harm in favor of speed.

For projects with unambiguous environmental benefits, such as housing developments within already urbanized areas, such speed makes sense. Many of the project types considered by this measure do not have the same clear, unambiguous benefits.

4. Restrictive Alternatives

One of CEQA’s most critical tools for preventing environmental harm is its alternative analysis provision, which allows for the identification of better project locations and designs. Currently, CEQA requires agencies to analyze a “reasonable range of alternatives” that could reduce environmental impacts, including different sites, reduced intensity options, and designs that avoid sensitive resources. This is how agencies can say, “this housing should be built downtown on a parking lot instead of on farmland,” or “this highway expansion has an alternative transit solution.”

BACA restricts this to just three options: the proposed project, one alternative designed by the applicant themselves (which doesn’t even need to be at a different location), and “no project.” The applicant’s alternative can be a slightly modified version of their original proposal on the same site. This eliminates the core mechanism for steering projects away from environmentally sensitive locations toward more appropriate sites, exactly the tool needed to prevent sprawl, protect open space, and ensure development happens in the right places.

5. The Evidentiary Standard

Maybe the most radical change incorporated in the ballot measure is to CEQA’s standard of review. Right now, CEQA allows a lead agency (generally a city or county) to use its own discretion to explore project alternatives and negotiate environmental mitigations. BACA proposes to eliminate this by requiring that environmental impacts only be found significant if they violate objective, quantifiable standards already in existing law when the project was proposed, which doesn’t sound inherently unreasonable! 

However, the measure doesn’t actually require jurisdictions to adopt such standards; instead, it exploits their absence. If numerical thresholds don’t already exist for resources like oak woodlands, groundwater, or wildlife corridors, impacts to them essentially can’t be found significant regardless of severity. A genuine objective standards approach would mandate jurisdictions adopt protective thresholds and update them as science improves. This measure rewards weak standards, freezes them at application date, and prevents improvements based on new knowledge.

6. Ballot Box Permanence

Finally, one of the greatest flaws of the measure is its rigidity. Should it pass, BACA would require a 2/3rds vote of the legislature to amend.

California has a long, storied history with ballot box governance, where initiatives become impossible to adjust as new problems arise. The 2/3rds requirement virtually guarantees the law could never be changed, regardless of what issues may arise. An unchangeable measure, with foreseeable negative impacts for the state, may have lasting consequences for generations.

Some of the project types included in this measure, such as clean energy or transmission infrastructure, may benefit from the types of streamlining being considered if careful, targeted changes were made. Rather than a broad, clunky initiative that will be extremely difficult to change, we should advocate for those reforms through the legislative cleanup process already underway.

7. The Costs Are Just Too High

California faces converging affordability crises: insurers fleeing the state, utility rates climbing, and municipal budgets straining under unsustainable costs. All of these issues stem from the same source: decades of sprawling outward, often into fire-prone areas, leaving us with infrastructure we cannot afford to maintain and risks we cannot afford to insure.

BACA will accelerate these failures by trading short-term speed for permanent costs. By gutting CEQA’s alternatives analysis—the primary tool for steering projects away from costly, high-risk locations—this limits agencies to the developer’s preferred site, one alternative the developer designs themselves, and “no project.” It freezes environmental standards at the date of application, rewarding jurisdictions with weak protections. And it requires agencies to approve permits within strict timelines regardless of fiscal consequences, because most cities lack the quantitative standards BACA requires to find fiscal impacts “significant.”

The result: even if we build some things faster today, we’ll be paying the tab forever. Even more homes in fire zones will continue to destabilize our insurance markets. More infrastructure extensions will push up our utility rates. More sprawling subdivisions that generate less revenue than they cost to maintain will ensure even higher taxes. BACA promises affordability through speed but delivers the opposite: cheaper to build, but financially ruinous to sustain.

At a time when people are struggling to make ends meet, and when the federal government is doing all it can to roll back our environmental protections, the last thing we need is to double down on the failed policies we have tried for decades and know do not work.

Proposition 45 will hurt the environment and your wallet.

Greenbelt Alliance strongly opposes Proposition 45 and urges voters to vote NO on 45 this November.

The post Vote No on Prop 45: Rolling Back CEQA Is A Proposition Californians Can’t Afford appeared first on Greenbelt Alliance.

Coal mining companies shed thousands of jobs with little warning during the Hunter’s last coal downturn, and an extension to Hunter Valley Operations can’t substitute a proper plan to protect workers, says Hunter Renewal.

In recent years, conservation photographer Gerrit Vyn has ventured repeatedly to a place most people have never heard of, much less visited: Teshekpuk Lake. Flat, buggy, and remote, this wetland...

Vermont’s forests are the crown jewel of our landscape: they define the state and support healthy communities, robust and diverse ecosystems, and the economic vitality of the state. Healthy forests...

UN chief António Guterres urged countries to break their dependency on fossil fuels at a climate summit on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly on Wednesday, where host nations Türkiye and Australia set the tone for COP31 and vulnerable countries called for more and faster finance to boost resilience in a warming world.

As the world faces extreme climate impacts turbocharged by a “super El Niño” event and fossil fuel prices soar amid conflict in the Middle East, Guterres said reliance on fossil fuels “wreaks havoc”, and urged governments to boost their renewable energy capacity as a way out.

“Doubling down on oil and gas will only lock in vulnerability for decades. Fortunately, we have a way out. Because the crisis is accelerating – but so are the solutions,” he said.

Reiterating a point made in his farewell speech to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, Guterres urged all countries to submit “credible” national roadmaps to end their production and consumption of coal, oil and gas – “with clear timelines”.

“The G20, responsible for 80 percent of global emissions, must lead. The principle of common but differentiated responsibilities must apply. But all countries must raise their ambition,” he added.

Germany plans to end use of fossil fuels in energy sector by 2045

At last year’s COP30 climate summit in Belém, a group of some 80 governments led a failed push to develop a global roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels. Brazil instead will draft a voluntary report to be presented this year ahead of COP31, incorporating views from a range of countries and organisations.

Governments first agreed to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems at COP28 in Dubai in 2023, but have since been unable to agree at UN climate talks on how to move forward with that commitment, as efforts to do so have been effectively blocked by large fossil fuel-producing countries.

The UN chief urged the world to match the accelerating climate crisis “with accelerating action”, by matching the revolution in clean energy with a revolution in finance and rising impacts with rising protection.

“I ask you all to deliver – then over-deliver,” he said. “We are the first generation with the tools to end the fossil fuel age – and the last who can avert climate catastrophe.”

Nepal flood a warning of global impacts to come, says minister

After being hit by devastating flash floods last month in its Himalayan region that left around 1,500 people dead and 6,000 missing, Nepal’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Shisir Khanal warned the catastrophe is “not merely a local tragedy but a warning to the world of what might be coming next”.

“The crisis has dragged vulnerable communities back into poverty,” Khanal said, adding that the crisis has “shattered the dream of many who saw hope in our steady development path”. 

Preliminary assessments estimate that losses could reach up to $5 billion – equivalent to 15% of the country’s GDP or a third of its annual budget. “This is not merely a humanitarian emergency, it’s a development emergency dismantling years of progress,” said Khanal.

He called on the international community to “act not only differently but decisively” by delivering on an existing commitment to double adaptation finance and capitalising the new Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage Fund, which currently has only several hundred million dollars to disburse to countries hit hard by climate impacts. 

Vulnerable countries, he said, need “scaled-up, front-loaded and accessible climate finance that reaches communities before disaster strikes, not after devastation has already occurred”. For countries like Nepal, “adaptation is not optional; it is a lifeline,” he added.

Comment: The response to Nepal’s disaster is a test for global climate institutions

Khanal also urged countries to double down on efforts to keep the 1.5C global warming goal within reach. “This is a matter of survival for mountain and coastal communities,” he said, calling for universal access to early warning systems, affordable technologies tailored to mountain ecosystems, climate information services and resilient infrastructure.

Sharing a stage with Khanal, the prime minister of Pacific island state Tuvalu, Feleti Teo, said the Nepal flash flood is a testament that the “devastating and indiscriminate” impacts from climate change are no longer a matter for forecasts. “They are happening now and no one country will be spared,” he said.

“The process and modality of access to climate financing must be simple and easily accessible. – particularly for small administrations like Tuvalu. We do not have the luxury of capacity and time to navigate through complex and convoluted procedures,” he added.

Türkiye’s president says countries can’t all move at the same pace

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan urged countries to deliver an “implementation COP” in Antalya, noting that the “devastating floods in Nepal already demonstrate we no longer have time to lose”.

However, he stressed that developing countries cannot be rushed into taking measures outside of their capacity, adding that “in Antalya, we must bring ambition closer to capacity and targets closer to implementation”.

It is “not realistic to expect all countries to move forward all at the same pace”, he added, emphasising that “any proposal that fails to reconcile climate objectives with social and economic realities will be doomed to fail”.

The Turkish COP31 co-presidency has prioritised a voluntary target to increase electricity’s share of final energy consumption to 35% by 2035, up from the current level of 23%. Erdoğan also flagged a proposed target to reduce global waste, which is being championed by his wife.

IEA head: Strait of Hormuz pushing countries towards clean energy

As governments prepare for COP31 – where one of the flagship targets will be to boost electricity’s share of global energy consumption to 35% by 2035 – International Energy Agency (IEA) chief Fatih Birol said the Middle East conflict presents an opportunity not seen in years.

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz, due to tensions between the US and Iran, has led countries to reassess their energy sources and partners, Birol said. Their response, he added, has been in “a big chunk if not all” cases to pick clean energy as the most secure, affordable and green option.

“In the energy world, we have three choices in front of us: shall I choose the most secure option, the most economic energy option or the cleanest? We have to make choices and tradeoffs. When I look at the world today, for the first time in years, all three objectives hit very close to each other,” he said.

An aerial view shows the largest solar plant in Bangladesh, built on a 350-acre site. The plant began to supply electricity from 25 December 2021. The photo was taken from Borodurgapur village of Mongla upazila in Bagerhat October 26, 2023. (Photo: Mushfiqul Alam/NurPhoto via Reuters Connect) An aerial view shows the largest solar plant in Bangladesh, built on a 350-acre site. The plant began to supply electricity from 25 December 2021. The photo was taken from Borodurgapur village of Mongla upazila in Bagerhat October 26, 2023. (Photo: Mushfiqul Alam/NurPhoto via Reuters Connect)

The IEA chief said an electrification target at COP31, proposed by Turkiye, would send “a very strong and unmistakable signal to investors, financiers, utilities, governments and beyond”. 

“This, in turn, will not only make the world much more secure, and offer a more affordable option to consumers, but at the same time it will bring emissions down, which would be a major outcome and major good news,” he said.

UN backs push to upgrade grids slowing clean power uptake in Africa and SE Asia

His words were borne out by Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, who said the closure of the Strait of Hormuz had made the bloc bitterly aware of the effects and the additional costs of its dependence on imported fossil fuels. 

She added that Europe has assets in the form of electricity produced from home-grown renewables and nuclear. “This clean electricity gives us independence, energy security, and it is affordable,” she said. Europe already gets 70% of its electricity from clean energies, “but more has to be done”, she added, including better integrating clean power into the energy system. 

Europe needs to boost clean energy storage and flexibility, and accelerate grid connections, in order to reach its goal of doubling the share of electricity by 2040, Von der Leyen said. 

“With this, Europe could cut its fossil fuel import bill by 260 billion euros a year and invest it in the clean transition,” she added.

Ursula von Der Leyen, President of the European Commission, addresses the High-level Meeting on Climate Action and the Just Transition at the United Nations in New York, September 23, 2026 (UN Photo/Laura Jarriel) Ursula von Der Leyen, President of the European Commission, addresses the High-level Meeting on Climate Action and the Just Transition at the United Nations in New York, September 23, 2026 (UN Photo/Laura Jarriel) Australian PM promotes Pacific climate resilience

Anthony Albanese, Australia’s Prime Minister, whose country is co-hosting the COP31 climate summit in Türkiye, offered firm support to the Pacific region which will host pre-COP discussions next month in Fiji. He called on countries to contribute to the new Pacific Resilience Facility (PRF), a regional climate financing mechanism intended to provide money for community climate action.

Australia has contributed $100 million towards the fund’s goal of reaching a capitalisation of $1.5 billion. So far the PRF has raised $180 million against an interim goal of $500 million by COP31.

“It is a fact that those countries which are least responsible for the rise in emissions and the change in temperatures, such as our Pacific Island family, are those who are most affected by climate change,” he said. 

He noted that for island nations such as Tuvalu and Kiribati, “it is literally an existential threat”. “So we must act, and we must act as a matter of urgency,” he added. 

Palau’s President Surangel Whipps Jr. told the summit that the PRF will allow finance “to go directly to the communities that need it the most”, adding that “speed and agility are essential” for Pacific islands to adapt to extreme climate impacts. The low-lying Marshall Islands, for example, said it had taken 10 years to plan, fund and build a sea wall to protect its people from rising waters – time it does not have.

At regional summit, Pacific islands ask for COP31 support for clean energy and finance

Albanese added that Australia is seeking a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council for 2029-30, and if elected, aims to “elevate the importance of climate security, particularly in the Pacific, but more broadly as well”.

He stressed that while the cost of not acting would be “too high”, there are also economic – as well as environmental – benefits from tackling global warming.

“The truth is that it makes good macroeconomic policy to shift to a renewable-led clean energy revolution,” he said, adding that it also helps families. Some 540,000 Australian households have taken up subsidies to install solar panels with battery storage in the past year, he noted, slashing the cost of their power.

UN launches country platforms to support mineral-rich nations 

More than two years after a UN panel of experts called for justice and equity to underpin the development of the mineral supply chains needed for the energy transition, the UN is starting to follow up with concrete action.

On Wednesday, UN chief António Guterres announced that six countries – Guinea, Indonesia, Madagascar, Nigeria, Zambia and Zimbabwe – will be the first to receive dedicated support to turn their mineral wealth into engines for sustainable industrialisation, job creation and revenue generation so that it “drives local development, with added value remaining there”.

The country support mechanism, launched at the UN Climate Summit, will identify what individual recipient countries need to improve mineral governance, boost value addition and protect environmental and human rights and respond with coordinated technical assistance and capacity building from across the UN system. 

Zambia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Mulambo Haimbe said the initiative will support the country’s ambition “not simply to produce more, but to create greater value at home through investment, value addition, industrialisation and jobs”. 

Booming demand for minerals such as copper, lithium, cobalt, nickel and rare earths that are needed to build the equipment the world needs to move away from fossil fuels offer real development opportunities for the countries that hold them. But communities living near extraction sites often shoulder most of the costs while seeing few of the benefits.

The UN panel’s recommendations set out a vision for more just and sustainable mineral value chains. But implementation has been slow to follow. 

China keeps Indonesia’s battery dream afloat but future less certain

China’s deputy UN representative Sun Lei told the climate summit on Wednesday that critical minerals governance is a key issue for the country, which holds a firm grip on the mining and processing of most critical minerals. Last year at COP30 in Belém, China was one of the countries that blocked a mention of the social and environmental risk linked to energy transition minerals.

“All states must strengthen cooperation to build a governance system on critical minerals that is fair, reasonable, open, inclusive, clean and openly beneficial with win-win results,” he said.

Suneeta Kaimal, president and CEO of the Natural Resource Governance Institute, welcomed the announcement of the country platforms, adding that to succeed must be driven by local concerns. 

The new support mechanism “could enable countries to lead on the design of strategies, safeguards and policies that will allow them to shift from rule-takers to rule-shapers and unlock prosperity for all their people”, she said. 

UK minister defends climate multilateralism

After hosting a meeting of foreign ministers on Wednesday to discuss climate change as an issue of national security, Britain’s foreign minister Ed Miliband put up a spirited defence of global efforts to tackle climate change and slammed what he called “the defeatists”.

Those, he said, are people who maintain that climate negotiations have been going on for 30-40 years, and nothing has changed, so there’s no point in continuing. “The defeatists, I think, actually are now a bigger problem than the deniers and the delayers” and they should be told they are “wrong”, Miliband said. 

He noted that at the time of the failed Copenhagen COP in 2009 the world was headed for warming of 4C or more, while now the prediction has been reduced to around 2.5C. This, while still “very bad”, is proof that multilateralism has worked, he said.

“At a time when it is more under question than it has been for generations, I actually think that the climate efforts that we are making together and the will that I see from countries across the world to tackle this problem should give us confidence and optimism about the future,” he argued.

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