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On the first day of his presidency back in 2021, Joe Biden revoked a key permit for the Keystone XL pipeline, which would have brought oil from Canada’s tar sands into the U.S. The decision to kill Keystone XL was perhaps Biden’s clearest gift to the environmental movement. 

But now, five years later, a family of Wyoming oil tycoons is bringing the Keystone concept back from the dead — and the Trump administration is signaling its support. Last week, President Trump signed a presidential permit for the so-called Bridger expansion pipeline, which would likely deliver oil from the carbon-intensive Alberta tar sands to a pipeline hub in central Wyoming, 647 miles away. From there, the oil could move through other pipelines to key refineries as far south as the Gulf of Mexico.

“Slightly different than the last administration,” Trump said ⁠at the White House last Thursday when he signed the presidential permit. “They wouldn’t sign a pipeline deal, and we have pipelines going up.”

The presidential permit gives the project the green light to transport oil across international borders, and it’s only the latest step in what appears to be a fast-tracked timeline for the revived tar sands pipeline. Last month, the federal Bureau of Land Management announced that it would begin conducting an environmental review of the project on an expedited schedule. (The Trump administration has shortened many of the environmental review processes required for pipeline construction.) Bridger Pipeline, the company behind the project, says it wants to begin construction next year and start moving oil in 2028.

The pipeline would carry at least 550,000 barrels of crude oil per day. That’s only about two-thirds of what Keystone XL would have carried, but it could expand to a peak capacity even larger than what was originally planned — more than 1 million barrels a day. The similarity between the new pipeline’s path and Keystone’s has led some opponents to call the successor “Keystone Light.” The Canadian portion of the new pipeline would be built by a company called South Bow, which was spun off from TC Energy, the company behind the original Keystone XL line. 

Miles of unused pipe, prepared for the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, sit in a lot outside Gascoyne, North Dakota, in 2014.
Andrew Burton / Getty Images

The proposed pipeline would be one of the biggest new fossil fuel developments of Donald Trump’s second presidency. It comes at a time of growing oil production in Alberta and skyrocketing global crude prices due to the war the president is waging in Iran. The project is being pushed by the True family, a clan of oilmen with a long history of drilling in the Rockies — and a history of oil spills from pipelines across the region.

“We know that there is limited pipeline capacity to move Canadian crude oil, and we have extensive experience in the Rocky Mountains,” said Bill Salvin, a spokesperson for Bridger Pipeline, the True family pipeline company proposing the project.

The True business empire dates back to the 1940s, when a wildcatter named Henry Alphonso “Dave” True Jr. began exploring for oil in Wyoming. He and his three sons expanded their company into a network of almost a dozen corporations that includes a drilling company, a network of local oil pipelines, a trucking company, an oil trading company, an oil equipment company, a geothermal energy firm, and a real estate company called Brick & Bond, according to a Grist review of corporate records. They also invested in cattle ranching, becoming some of the state’s largest landowners. One of True’s sons, Diemer True, served for two decades in the Wyoming legislature.

This corporate expansion has given the four-generation True family outsize influence in a state that doesn’t produce much oil but neighbors the massive Bakken shale formation of North Dakota, which is served by some of the True family pipelines. The family name is synonymous with oil in Wyoming, and True family members have become prominent donors to the University of Wyoming and to a conservative legal foundation in the region. The Trues have also run afoul of the federal government: Several members of the family engaged in a 10-year dispute with the Internal Revenue Service over what the government said was a strategy to evade some taxes by shuttling ranchland purchases between different companies. (The case ended in a multimillion-dollar fine against the Trues, which was upheld by an appellate court in 2004.)

“They’re very prominent, and their business interests have spread all around the West,” said Phil Roberts, an emeritus professor of history at the University of Wyoming and an expert on the state’s oil industry. He noted that families like the Trues have shifted away from oil production as the state’s fields have declined, investing in pipelines and oilfield services to maintain their revenue.

“Those fields have gotten really worn out, so they’ve had to diversify,” said Roberts.

Tad True speaks during the third day of the Republican National Convention at the Tampa Bay Times Forum in 2012. Mark Wilson / Getty Images

Tad True, the grandson of the True who first struck oil in Wyoming, has led the family’s pipeline business for most of this century, expanding its network to more than 4,000 miles across Wyoming, Montana, and North Dakota. He argued as early as 2006 that more pipeline development was needed in order for regional oil producers to remain competitive, and in a 2012 testimony before the House of Representatives he said that the Obama administration’s regulations were blocking the pipelines needed for the fracking boom that was then in full swing. True spoke at the Republican National Convention the same year, accusing Obama of “playing politics” with the Keystone XL pipeline, which the then-president had rejected the previous year. (While the pipeline was primarily intended to carry Canadian shale oil to American markets, it would also have included an “on ramp” for crude from True’s part of the country.)

True’s company, Bridger Pipeline, has a history of oil spills. In 2015, one of the pipelines it operated ruptured underneath the Yellowstone River after fast-moving waters eroded sediment and rock from the riverbed. At least 30,000 gallons of crude oil streamed into the river, contaminating the water supplies of Glendive, Montana. The town had to truck in bottles of drinking water after some residents noticed an odor in their tap water. Then, just a year later, another pipeline operated by one of the company’s subsidiaries leaked 600,000 gallons into a stream in North Dakota — almost enough oil to fill an Olympic-sized pool. Another pipeline broke several years later, dumping 45,000 gallons of oil onto ranchland in Wyoming. The company ultimately paid $1 million in fines to the Montana Department of Environmental Quality for the 2015 spill and $12.5 million for the 2016 spill.

In total, there have been at least 42 spills as a result of pipeline operations by True subsidiaries since 2010. According to data collected by the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, more than a third of those spills had detrimental effects on the environment or people. The data shows that the Bridger Pipeline company alone is responsible for seven of those spills in just the last three years. The most recent spill took place in March near Guernsey, Wyoming. 

“That definitely sets off some alarm bells,” said Kenneth Clarkson, communications director with the nonprofit Pipeline Safety Trust. “It’s not acceptable to have one incident, and when we have this quantity, it’s definitely troubling.”

If the expanded Bridger pipeline ultimately carries tar sands oil from Canada, as appears likely, the environmental consequences of a spill could be dire. Given the thick, viscous nature of tar sands, operators mix a type of thinner — called a “diluent” in technical parlance — to help it flow through pipelines. In the event of a rupture, the diluent can easily evaporate, leaving behind a heavy, tar-like substance that sinks to the bottom of rivers and other waterways. That particular property of tar sands made cleanup of the Kalamazoo River particularly complicated after a different company’s pipeline burst in southwestern Michigan in 2010.  

“We regret any spill from our pipelines,” said Salvin, the Bridger spokesperson. “Anytime oil gets out of the line, that’s unacceptable to us, so we do everything possible to keep the oil in the line.” He said that Bridger will employ “horizontal drilling” to tunnel under rivers and streams, which he said would reduce the risk of ruptures. Salvin did not say what type of oil the pipeline would carry, but confirmed it would be engineered for “mostly heavy crude” from Alberta; the Canadian portion of the pipeline will begin in the town of Hardisty, in the heart of Alberta’s oil sands.

He also said the company would use advanced technology to monitor for leaks. In the aftermath of the 2015 spill, when North Dakota’s then-governor Doug Burgum challenged Tad True to prevent leaks, True created an artificial-intelligence software called Flowstate that analyzes pipelines for potential ruptures. Salvin said the company now uses the software on all its pipelines and markets it to other operators as well.

Even though the new proposed pipeline is similar to Keystone XL in length and size, it will only cost $2 billion, far less than Keystone’s $8 billion price tag. That’s because its route will largely follow existing infrastructure and rights-of-way established by True Companies pipelines. Salvin said that the company has held a dozen landowner meetings and has secured surveying easements, or allowances to scout the land for construction, from 374 of the 376 private landowners along the pipeline route. Unlike Keystone XL, the route does not cross any federally recognized tribal lands.

“We’re very familiar with what happened with the previous project,” said Salvin. “Given that we have existing pipeline corridors that we have access to, that’s one of the reasons why this makes such commercial sense to us.” Salvin declined to offer details about the financing of the project, and such details are not publicly available because Bridger is a privately held company.

The project must still secure a number of state and local permits, but so far it isn’t having any trouble with the Trump administration, which has been aggressive in supporting new oil and gas development. The line cuts through Montana and Wyoming, including public land overseen by the Bureau of Land Management, which is leading the federal government’s review of the project under the National Environmental Policy Act. Although the law typically requires the preparation of a detailed assessment of the project’s impact on wildlife and waterways, the bureau has suggested it might fast-track the pipeline’s review. 

Past studies have found that it typically takes federal agencies more than two years to complete an environmental impact statement, but the Bureau has indicated in public filings that it intends to publish a final impact statement by next May and make a decision on the project, allowing the company to begin construction by July.

Though True family members do not appear to be particularly close allies of Trump himself, they have given more than $4 million to Republican candidates and political action committees since 1977, according to federal records. A combined $12,000 went to Trump’s unsuccessful reelection campaign in 2020, the only apparent record of True financial support for the president. Furthermore, six members of the True family appeared on a 2022 endorsement list for Liz Cheney, the Wyoming politician who lost her reelection bid after she voted to impeach Trump.

The business case for the new pipeline rests on a number of big assumptions. The existing pipelines from the tar sands are running near capacity, but the Bridger proposal assumes that production in Canada’s oil hub will continue to increase. Many forecasters aren’t so sure; even with prices high, current projections show that production growth is slowing and may peak in 2030 at around 3.5 million barrels a day, well under what the proponents of Keystone XL anticipated. 

Second, the pipeline would only carry oil to central Wyoming, not all the way to the Nebraska refinery hub targeted by the original Keystone XL pipeline. Another company would need to build another pipeline across Nebraska in order for the crude to reach the major oil refineries on the Gulf Coast. (Salvin said Bridger is “exploring options” for that segment.) Third, it’s unclear if those refiners will even want as much of the heavy Canadian crude oil that the pipeline would offer, since imports of similar oil from Venezuela have started to tick up following Trump’s kidnapping of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and subsequent negotiations with the country’s new leadership. 

“To call this plan half-baked would be an insult to baking,” wrote energy lawyer and anti-pipeline advocate Paul Blackburn in a blog post last month. Blackburn is an advisor to Bold Alliance, the activist network that opposed the last Keystone XL proposal. 

Many of the same activist groups that opposed the prior pipeline are getting ready to oppose this one as well. The Bold Alliance, which organized tribes and rural landowners against Keystone, has said it will litigate any attempt to extend a pipeline into Nebraska. Jenny Harbine, a managing attorney with the nonprofit Earthjustice, said her group is “keeping a close eye” to ensure federal and state agencies adequately consider environmental and safety concerns. The Bureau of Land Management and the Montana Department of Environmental Quality, which is coordinating its review with that of the federal government, closed an initial public comment period last week.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline ‘Keystone Light’: These Wyoming oil tycoons are reviving the controversial pipeline on May 6, 2026.

There’s a strange trend afoot on the East Coast, where residents have seen some of the highest increases in electricity costs in the country. As part of efforts to relieve the pressure, some Democrats are planning to slash energy-efficiency programs. Because utilities fund energy-efficiency measures through charges to their customers, the thinking is that scaling the programs down will reduce people’s bills quickly. The irony is that energy efficiency is meant to do exactly that: lower people’s energy use, and thus reduce their bills. 

“The cheapest, fastest thing you can do to help meet energy demand in this moment of increasing need for energy is energy efficiency,” said Mark Kresowik, senior policy director at the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, or ACEEE.

This emerging trend among Democrats, alongside a more established shift among Republicans, is the opposite of how politicians have reacted to similar situations in the past. In 1973, when Arab countries stopped exporting oil to the U.S. because it supported Israel during the Yom Kippur War, oil prices soared, drivers waited in long lines at gas stations, and electricity bills increased. In response, President Richard Nixon proposed measures to trim energy use, including reducing speed limits to 50 mph, and urged Americans to lower their thermostats in the colder months. It was the beginning of a decades-long, bipartisan effort to improve energy efficiency and reduce the country’s reliance on “foreign oil.” 

The effort ended up saving Americans trillions of dollars. As regulations prompted manufacturers to make cars with better gas mileage, they trimmed fuel costs for Americans by an estimated $5 trillion over the course of decades (as well as preventing 14 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions). In addition, the efficiency standards that the government set on home appliances and plumbing still save the average household about $576 a year on their utility bills, while cutting national energy use by 6.5 percent. That’s according to data from the Department of Energy in January last year, before President Donald Trump took office.

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But confronted with another oil crisis today, again sparked by a conflict in the Middle East, many politicians are taking the opposite approach. The Trump administration, along with Republicans in Congress, has attacked the Biden-era fuel economy standards for cars, along with rules requiring appliances to be more efficient. And some Democrats, previously reliable supporters of energy efficiency, are wavering in their support. The result is that as data centers gobble up electricity, and extreme weather and an aging grid further drive up prices, some politicians are weakening one of the best tools for lowering bills and protecting people from price swings.

In Maryland, for example, Democratic Governor Wes Moore is expected to sign legislation scaling back the state’s target to reduce emissions, which would cut the amount utilities have to spend on energy-efficiency programs and eliminate a surcharge ratepayers see on their bills. Politicians in the region are looking for anything to immediately decrease their constituents’ bills, and they don’t have a lot of options to address the drivers of rising costs. “Energy affordability politics are dominating the political agenda, and it’s very difficult to address energy affordability,” said Kelly Trombley, senior director of state policy at Ceres, a sustainability nonprofit. But politicians can remove energy-efficiency surcharges with the stroke of a pen.

That helps explain why Rhode Island Governor Dan McKee, another Democrat, floated the idea of capping spending for energy efficiency rebates at $75 million a year, down from $95 million approved for this year. Fees, state mandates, and other charges tied to state policies reportedly account for a quarter of energy bills. Affordability concerns also prompted Democrats in the Massachusetts House to pass a bill that would cut $1 billion, out of $4.5 billion, from the state’s energy-efficiency budget. That bill appears to have a tough path forward, since the chair of the state Senate’s energy committee has signaled his support for Mass Save, a program that rewards ratepayers for buying heat pumps and making other energy-saving moves.

In Maryland, supporters of the legislation to cut energy efficiency spending say it could save residents $150 a year or more on their bills. “The thing about surcharges like this is, it is one of our most direct tools,” state Delegate Marc Korman, a Democrat, told Canary Media. ​“We don’t want to forsake all efforts at energy efficiency, but we want to try to provide a little bit of relief for some time if we can.” 

To opponents, focusing on immediate savings misses the bigger picture, since it would hurt affordability in the long-term. An analysis from ACEEE found that the proposed legislation in Maryland would increase costs for the state’s electricity customers by a net $592 million.

“Unfortunately, cutting energy efficiency programs — it’s like trading in your car for one that gets worse gas mileage at a time when gas prices are going up, and it won’t do anything to address those real cost drivers that will only get worse,” Trombley said. “Energy efficiency is one of the only options customers have to insulate themselves from the volatility coming from things like natural gas or an aging grid susceptible to extreme weather.”

While the trend appears mostly limited to the Northeast and mid-Atlantic, there’s one recent example of Democrats opposing an energy-efficiency measure on the federal level. In January, 57 Democrats in the House voted with Republicans on a bill that would eliminate the Biden administration’s efficiency standards for manufactured homes, which haven’t been updated since 1994 and allow for poor insulation. It’s still awaiting a vote in the Senate.

Republicans have increasingly targeted energy-efficiency laws, a reversal from the days of presidents Nixon and Ronald Reagan, who signed the National Appliance Energy Conservation Act in 1987. These days, everything from dishwashers to laundry machines has been sucked into the culture wars. The Trump administration and Republicans in Congress have targeted efficiency standards enacted under the Biden administration, viewing them as symbols of Democrats interfering with “consumer choice.” Last week, the Trump administration urged the Supreme Court to strike down Biden-era rules that would have restricted gas-powered commercial water heaters and consumer furnaces, siding with the natural gas industry and utilities.

Still, some energy efficiency programs have survived the Republican-dominated federal government. After the Trump administration threatened to eliminate Energy Star, a government program that puts its certification label on products that meet its efficiency standards, Congress passed a bipartisan spending bill in January that ensures continued funding. Congress also allocated $3 million more in funding for the Weatherization Assistance Program, which provides free energy-efficiency upgrades for low-income households, than it did last year, for a total of $329 million. Some Republican members of Congress have proposed a bill to extend tax credits from the Inflation Reduction Act that were set to expire at the end of June — including incentives for constructing energy-efficient homes and supporting retrofits for commercial buildings.

And in the bigger picture, state spending on energy efficiency, especially in terms of assisting low-income households, has been on the rise. Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat, signed a handful of pro-efficiency laws in April aiming to trim household bills by providing energy-saving upgrades to low-income families, some with bipartisan support. Also last month, Ned Lamont, Connecticut’s Democratic governor, announced a measure that’s supposed to save families about $30 a month by decreasing charges for public benefits on utility bills, with much of the reduction offset by contracts he negotiated with nuclear power plants that provide energy at fixed prices.

“We’re hopeful that there’s a pathway to strengthen and really recognize that you actually can’t have an energy affordability strategy without energy efficiency,” Trombley said.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Democrats used to back energy-saving plans. Now they’re wavering. on May 6, 2026.

Last week, the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues released urgent calls to action, including a pause on fast-tracked critical mineral projects and increased funding for Indigenous climate projects. But those recommendations come as the Forum itself is facing an existential crisis. 

For 25 years, the Forum has been the leading United Nations body representing Indigenous peoples, but that status has not always translated to policy change by member states or the U.N. itself. Growing questions about the Forum’s effectiveness also come amid budget cuts at the U.N., Trump’s rejection of multilateralism, and ongoing efforts to streamline U.N. processes. These intersecting challenges are all threatening to push the Forum, and the causes Indigenous representatives bring to it, even further toward the margins.

“For us, climate change is not a distant threat. It is a present and lived human rights crisis,” Aluki Kotierk, who is Inuk from Canada and current chairperson of the Permanent Forum, said Friday at the conclusion of the Forum’s two-week annual meeting in New York City. The Forum’s recommendations reflect discussions and research conducted by hundreds of Indigenous delegates and experts over the past year. They join more than 1,000 recommendations issued by the Forum since it first began to meet, many of which Indigenous advocates deem critical to their survival. But state governments often blatantly ignore them. 

A new “Systemic Assessment” report by a group of current and former members of the Permanent Forum underscores this problem. “While UNPFII has succeeded in establishing itself as a visible and legitimate global platform, questions remain regarding its ability to translate dialogue, recommendations, and knowledge production into tangible outcomes for Indigenous Peoples on the ground,” the report said. “The proliferation of recommendations has not been matched by corresponding mechanisms for implementation, follow-up, and accountability.” 

The report underscores the limitations of Forum, which makes recommendations on behalf of Indigenous peoples to U.N. agencies and member states, but has been hamstrung by funding cuts and the willingness of other U.N. agencies and global leaders to listen. Annual funding for the U.N. Trust Fund on Indigenous Issues, which helps the Permanent Forum carry out its mission, is at a historic low, falling from more than $300,000 in 2021 to less than $50,000 in 2026. Currently, only three U.N. member states contribute to the fund, down from nine member states in 2006. 

The drop in funding reflects a broader liquidity crisis at the U.N. driven in part by late payments from key members like the U.S. and China. Kotierk said the lack of funding has led to staff reductions at the Forum, shorter meeting times, and fewer interpretation services. 

That didn’t stop the Forum from issuing bold calls to action on Friday, including urging U.N. member states to seriously consider international court rulings to mitigate climate change by 2027, and to legally protect Indigenous lands, especially land belonging to uncontacted tribes. The Forum published multiple reports Friday with recommendations ranging from asking member states to develop legal protections for nomadic Indigenous communities, to urging the Green Climate Fund and Global Environment Facility, multi-billion dollar government-funded global funds, to provide direct funding to Indigenous peoples to mitigate climate change. 

Eirik Larsen, who attended this year’s Forum on behalf of the Saami Council, urged Forum members to consider capping the number of recommendations to maximize their effectiveness, and to ask member states and U.N. entities to report back on whether they’ve implemented recommendations from previous years. 

Larsen said that despite the need for improvement, he keeps returning to the Forum because it’s an important arena for discussing critical issues at the international level. “It’s a unique venue for Indigenous peoples to interact directly with member states,” he said. 

The systemic assessment of the Forum found that many Indigenous survey respondents agreed with Larsen’s appreciation of the Forum, seeing it as “a place of visibility, exchange, and recognition,” the report found. “Yet a large number also characterize it as overly performative, a ‘talk shop,’ or a space in which testimony is heard but not translated into meaningful change.” 

To Ghazali Ohorella, international relations and Indigenous rights advisor of the Alifuru Council, the assessment could not have been issued at a worse time. Just a year ago, the U.N. embarked on a process of restructuring, which could lead to U.N. bodies like the Forum being consolidated or eliminated. Today’s Permanent Forum is the result of decades of advocacy by Indigenous peoples for a dedicated space within the U.N., which by design, privileges the voices of recognized state governments and doesn’t allow Indigenous peoples who remain under colonial rule to vote in the General Assembly. Ohorella is worried that the report — which is based on a survey of 200 respondents, rather than the thousands of attendees over the past 25 years — could give ammunition to the Forum’s detractors. “It allows them to say: See, even Indigenous Peoples themselves identified problems with the Forum. Retire it,” Ohorella said. 

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One of the most valuable aspects of the Forum is its ability to elevate issues that otherwise might be ignored, like Indigenous health, which was the main topic of this year’s gathering. “There is no health without land. The well-being of Indigenous Peoples is inseparable from our lands, waters, and territories,” Kotierk said in her closing speech on Friday. “To restore health, we must advance decolonization.” This year, the Forum’s official recommendations urged U.N. member states to disaggregate health data on Indigenous peoples by 2027, and “to treat prolonged climate-induced displacement of Indigenous Peoples as a health emergency.” 

Kotierk said that the Forum has been instrumental in influencing global policies. “This Forum has consistently elevated what the world too often ignored. It has brought visibility to the crisis of Indigenous Peoples’ languages, affirmed the rights and leadership of Indigenous women and girls, and ensured that Indigenous Peoples’ voices are not only present—but heard—in international decision-making,” Kotierk said. 

Yet despite its importance, it’s not easy for Indigenous advocates to participate in the Permanent Forum. Structural barriers that limit participation include challenges obtaining visas — which have worsened under the Trump administration — lack of awareness about the Forum and how to register, and the high cost of travel. In the systemic assessment report, survey respondents suggested the Forum consider holding regional, national and local gatherings “that do not force all meaningful participation through a single annual gathering in New York.” 

Mariah Hernandez-Fitch, a first-year law student at Emory University and a member of the United Houma Nation, attended the Forum for the first time as a youth fellow for the Ban Ki-Moon Foundation. Hernandez-Fitch has never been abroad and this was her first time participating in a global Indigenous space. “It was beautiful to see people not all in suits,” she said. “Seeing people in their cultural attire, their formal wear, that was very exciting to me.” She listened to someone from Vietnam speak about how climate change was affecting their community and was moved by how similar their experience was to her family’s experience with rising seas in southeastern Louisiana. 

But she also felt overwhelmed by the process, confused by when the side events were happening, and ended up not delivering a planned statement, in part because she was intimidated by the process. “There’s rules, but if you don’t know about them, you do feel out of place even in a space that is for Indigenous peoples,” she said. 

Still, now that she’s back in New Orleans, Hernandez-Fitch can see herself returning to the Forum. “I can see myself applying the law and my experience into those spaces,” she said. “I could see myself not being scared of making an intervention.” It helped to meet other Indigenous youth who care just as much as she does about making a difference. “There’s a communal kind of excitement and I feel excited for the future.”

Conversations about how to make the Forum more effective will continue at next year’s gathering, which will be held from May 10 to 21 and focus on global progress on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. 

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The uncertain future of the UN’s leading voice on Indigenous rights on May 6, 2026.

Labour inaction on poison weedkillers Channel News brendan 6th May 2026 Teaser Media

Energetická transformace k obnovitelným zdrojům nabírá v celé Evropě na tempu. V ekologickém hnutí přitom vznikají spory mezi zastánci rychlého budování rozsáhlé obnovitelné infrastruktury a stoupenci participace místních komunit.

Až donedávna panoval v energetické politice západního světa opatrný konsensus: udržovat stávající model založený na fosilních palivech a zároveň vlažně podporovat dekarbonizaci. Tento konsensus se nyní bortí a energetickou politiku v rostoucí míře určuje otevřený konflikt.

Političtí aktéři hájící zájmy fosilního průmyslu se čím dál nepokrytěji staví proti energetické transformaci, což se projevuje zejména rostoucím odporem vůči projektům rozvoje obnovitelných zdrojů. V Evropské unii se zvlášť na krajní pravici prosazuje rétorika proti obnovitelným zdrojům, která vykresluje větrnou a solární energetiku jako ekonomicky nevýhodnou, diktovanou shora a odtrženou od „reálných“ potřeb běžných lidí.

Rychlý rozmach obnovitelných zdrojů však nenaráží jen na zájmy fosilního průmyslu. Vyvolává také spory mezi aktéry, kteří v zásadě zelenou transformaci podporují.

Na lokální a regionální úrovni se řada ekologických organizací postavila proti konkrétním projektům, jež jsou součástí přechodu k obnovitelné energetice. Například v jižní Francii podnikly spolky jako France Nature Environnment a Liga za ochranu ptactva (LPO) právní kroky proti parkům větrných elektráren, které v chráněných lokalitách ohrožovaly vzácné ptačí druhy. V jižním Španělsku zahájila skupina Ecologistas en Acción kampaň proti projektu rozsáhlé solární elektrárny s odůvodněním, že by znehodnotil půdu a narušil místní flóru.

Tyto debaty nejsou jen typickými příklady sporů o ekologickou spravedlnost či odporu místních obyvatel k výstavbě v jejich okolí (tzv. NIMBY efekt — z anglického Not In My Backyard, tedy Ne na mém dvorku), přestože se s nimi v mnoha ohledech prolínají. Jde spíše o ukázku konfliktů uvnitř zeleného hnutí — o střety mezi navzájem soupeřícími ekologickými prioritami.

Aktéři uvedených sporů se sice shodnou na potřebě dekarbonizace a ochrany přírody, ale rozcházejí se v tom, jaké typy obnovitelných zdrojů by se měly využívat, kde by se elektrárny měly stavět a kdo o tom má rozhodovat. Jelikož jsou spory daného typu čím dál častější a mají zásadní politické důsledky, zasluhují si zevrubnější analýzu, o niž se tu chci pokusit.

Soupeření mezi prioritami

Termín „green-on-green conflicts“, tedy konflikty uvnitř zeleného hnutí, zavedl v roce 2004 britský geograf Charles Warren. Inspiroval se přitom vojenským výrazem „blue-on-blue“, který označuje střelbu do vlastních řad. Warren už tehdy upozornil, že podobné střety předznamenávají budoucí debaty v rámci ekologického hnutí: „Společnost se přiklonila k zelené politice, ale jakou podobu by zelená politika měla vlastně mít?“

Spory mezi ekologickými aktivisty se často točí kolem umístění energetické infrastruktury, ochrany ohrožených druhů či procesů plánování, v principu se však jedná o konflikty politické. Nutí nás totiž klást si otázky, kdo v rámci zelené transformace definuje veřejný zájem a co lze ještě považovat za přijatelné vedlejší škody.

Spory uvnitř zeleného hnutí nejsou ničím novým. Odrážejí dlouhodobé napětí mezi různými proudy, které hlavní důraz kladou na odlišné aspekty ekologické krize. Nejčastěji proti sobě v posledních desetiletích stanuly dva tábory. Na jedné straně to jsou ti, kteří usilují o zmírnění klimatické změny a upřednostňují rychlou, systémovou transformaci ve spolupráci s vládami a průmyslem, což zahrnuje i výstavbu rozsáhlé infrastruktury.

Proti nim se postavili ti, kteří hájí zájmy místních komunit a regionů a akcentují ochranu biodiverzity, půdy a přírodních zdrojů. Popsanou dělicí linii bychom neměli přeceňovat, faktem ale zůstává, že v řadě sporů uvnitř zeleného hnutí stojí proti sobě právě uvedené dvě skupiny, což odráží také dlouhodobý střet mezi odlišnými politickými kulturami uvnitř hnutí.

Ačkoli do odporu proti projektům v oblasti obnovitelné energie často vstupují i jiné příčiny, konflikty mezi ekologickými aktéry si zasluhují zvláštní pozornost. V zemích EU vedla zrychlující se energetická transformace v posledním desetiletí k čím dál častějším a viditelnějším střetům daného typu.

Každý ze sporů je sice zasazen do specifických místních souvislostí, které nelze vždy snadno zobecnit, přesto se do nich často promítají podobné vzorce. Zatímco evropská fosilní energetika se obvykle opírá o těžbu v odlehlých oblastech a o infrastrukturu soustředěnou do nemnoha lokalit, zelená transformace spočívá na početnějších a územně rozptýlených zdrojích výroby energie. Tím se produkce energie dostává do mnohem těsnějšího kontaktu s obydlenou krajinou a místními komunitami.

Při prosazování projektů energetické transformace se obvykle argumentuje naléhavou potřebou dekarbonizace, křehkou energetickou bezpečností či nutností dosáhnout energetické nezávislosti. Odpor proti projektům obnovitelné energetiky naopak postrádá jednotný scénář. Bývá spíše situační, promítají se do něj specifika daných projektů a jejich konkrétní dopady na místní přírodu a krajinu. Navzdory různorodosti odporu lze říci, že jednotlivé sektory energetiky zpravidla vyvolávají specifické typy protestů podle konkrétního dopadu na životní prostředí.

Ohniska sporů

Zřejmě nejčastější a rovněž nejdiskutovanější příčinou sporů uvnitř zeleného hnutí je výstavba větrných elektráren, které v Evropské unii vyrábějí asi čtyřicet procent obnovitelné energie. Jedním z důvodů je jejich nepřehlédnutelnost. Vnitrozemské větrné parky proměňují ráz krajiny a výrazně zasahují do životního prostředí, čímž vyvolávají tradiční formy odporu proti velkým infrastrukturním stavbám.

Dobře je to vidět na příkladu Galicie v severozápadním Španělsku. V regionu, který byl kdysi největším španělským producentem větrné energie, nyní naráží rozšiřování pevninských větrných elektráren na tvrdý odpor. Ekologické organizace vystupují proti desítkám nových projektů a podávají stovky žalob s argumentem, že rychlá výstavba ničí krajinu i chráněné oblasti.

Řada projektů tak byla dočasně pozastavena, což vyvolalo bouřlivou celospolečenskou debatu. Kampaň přitom neodmítla větrnou energii jako takovou: odpůrci naopak zdůrazňují, že větrná energie je „pro ochranu planety před dopady současné klimatické krize zásadní“. Svou kritiku však směřují proti „spekulativnímu a predátorskému modelu“ rozsáhlých projektů větrných elektráren, které jsou prosazovány shora v zájmu velkých energetických korporací.

Takovýto přístup podle nich může způsobit „nezvratné ekologické, kulturní, společenské a ekonomické škody“. Podobné spory kolem větrných parků se objevily také v dalších částech Evropy, například v Německu, Švédsku nebo na Kypru.

Podobné diskuse vyvolávají i solární projekty, které zajišťují asi čtvrtinu evropské energie z obnovitelných zdrojů. Například plány na projekt Dama Solar v rumunské župě Arad, který se měl stát největším fotovoltaickým parkem v Evropě, napadlo u soudu místní ochranářské sdružení. Jeho zástupci tvrdí, že umístění projektu do chráněného území Natura 2000 ohrožuje tamní vzácné druhy.

Konflikt postavil ochranáře do přímého střetu s developery a státními úřady, kteří projekt hájí jako nezbytný pro dosažení klimatických cílů a posílení energetické bezpečnosti země. Celý spor, který byl později po mimosoudní dohodě pozastaven, odráží širší vzorec, s nímž se můžeme setkat třebas i v některých částech Francie, Španělska a Polska.

Vedle větrné a solární energetiky jsou tu ovšem i další základní pilíře transformace, které sice nepřitahují tolik pozornosti, ale jsou právě tak klíčové. Posilování přenosových sítí nebo výroba baterií rovněž vyvolává na různých místech v Evropě spory uvnitř zeleného tábora. Vůbec nejsilnější odpor se však zvedá proti těžbě některých kritických surovin; vlna protestů proti těžařským projektům se objevila v zemích jako Srbsko nebo Švédsko.

V severním Portugalsku vyvolaly vlnu odporu plány na těžbu lithia nedaleko obce Covas do Barroso. Ačkoli úřady projekt prezentovaly jako strategický příspěvek k evropské energetické transformaci, místní obyvatelé a ekologické organizace okamžitě zareagovali demonstracemi a přípravou právních kroků.

Protestující mluvili o tom, že jejich krajina má být „obětována“ a že zdejší životní prostředí utrpí jen proto, aby dekarbonizace pokročila někde jinde. Vadilo jim také, že rozhodnutí přišlo shora bez ohledu na jejich názor. Jedna z organizací, která se na protestech podílela, Unidos em Defesa de Covas do Barroso, shrnula kritiku argumentem, že „energetická transformace, která obětuje životní prostředí a je komunitám vnucena shora, místo aby vznikala ve spolupráci s nimi, přehlíží zkušenosti místních lidí s jejich vlastní krajinou a vytváří nebezpečný nedemokratický precedent“.

Od klimatu ke krajině

Stále častější konflikty uvnitř zeleného hnutí svědčí o hlubších rozporech v pojetí ekologického aktivismu. Patrná je zejména rostoucí nespokojenost s tím, že se výhradním středobodem ekologických kampaní stává samo klima. Některé proudy radikálního ekologického hnutí dnes vnímají „klima“ jako příliš abstraktní a technokratické téma, které je navíc úzce svázáno s politikou establishmentu.

Jejich skepse často pramení z frustrace z mainstreamové klimatické politiky, kterou mnozí považují za příliš pomalou a neefektivní. Takováto kritika zaznívá už dlouho, širší odezvy se jí však začalo dostávat až po neúspěchu klimatických protestů v roce 2019. Většina účastníků akcí tehdy nabyla dojmu, že ani masová mobilizace veřejnosti nevedla k prosazení smysluplné politické změny.

Zatím nelze hovořit o tom, že by v Evropě obrat od soustředění na klima ke komplexnějšímu vnímání ekologické krize nastával v širším měřítku, některé případy však naznačují, že se takováto dynamika začíná postupně prosazovat. Jasným příkladem je francouzská radikální organizace Povstání země (Les Soulèvements de la Terre), která sdružuje aktivisty různých názorových proudů včetně těch, kteří jsou rozčarováni vývojem dosavadních klimatických protestů. Francouzská organizace prohlašuje, že klimatická politika zůstává odtržená od žité reality, a namísto toho vybízí k lokálním zápasům, které „vracejí ekologické hnutí zpátky na zem“.

Uvedený obrat je zčásti odrazem lokálního ekologického aktivismu. Odpor proti projektům energetické transformace často navazuje na dlouhodobé tradice hnutí proti jaderným elektrárnám, budování přehrad, těžbě či průmyslovému zemědělství. Takováto hnutí obvykle chápou ekologický konflikt jako obranu krajiny a každodenního života proti vzdáleným centrům politické a ekonomické moci.

Historicky se takovéto iniciativy vyvíjely v určitém odstupu od agendy klimatické transformace. S tím, jak se nyní přechod k zelené energii zrychluje, napětí mezi různými tradicemi ekologického hnutí vystupuje na povrch a v některých případech přerůstá v otevřený konflikt.

Svou roli hraje také rostoucí vliv antikapitalistických postojů v ekologickém aktivismu. Pro mnohé skupiny totiž není hlavním tématem sama dekarbonizace, ale spíše její prosazování prostřednictvím tržních mechanismů. Z tohoto pohledu se zelený průmysl nejeví jako rozchod s minulostí, ale spíš jako stará známá logika exploatace zdrojů a kumulace kapitálu v novém kabátě.

To pak znemožňuje přistoupit na to, jak si energetickou transformaci představují vlády či korporace, a to i v situacích, kdy panuje široká shoda na nutnosti skoncovat s fosilními palivy. Popsané posuny nám pomáhají pochopit, proč se určité proudy zeleného aktivismu přiklánějí stále více k lokálním konfliktům a jak spolu s tím vzrůstá i nedůvěra vůči klimatické politice. Objasňuje se tím také vznik nových spojenectví mezi radikálními ekologickými aktivisty, ochranářskými organizacemi a obyvateli venkovských či příměstských oblastí.

Spory o pojetí zelené politiky míří do vyšších pater

Vnitřní konflikty zeleného hnutí se neprojevují jen lokálními protesty, ale stále častěji pronikají i do vysoké politiky. Ačkoli obě roviny nemusí být vždy přímo provázané, často zrcadlí stejné základní napětí.

To jen potvrzuje, že nejednotnost hnutí zdaleka není jen záležitostí lokálních sporů. U některých ekologicky zaměřených stran to pak vede k odmítání dekarbonizačních projektů, které by vyžadovaly jakékoli kompromisy.

Ačkoli se rétorika politických stran nemusí vždy přesně krýt s argumenty v lokálních sporech „zelených proti zeleným“, často s nimi sdílí podobnou vnitřní logiku. Příklady z nedávné doby najdeme po celé Evropě. Ve švýcarském kantonu Valais se například postavila Strana zelených proti vybudování fotovoltaických elektráren v alpských oblastech. V Portugalsku se zase levicový Bloco de Esquerda zapojil do kampaní proti těžbě lithia, v níž varuje před ničivými dopady na tamní krajinu.

Další, taktéž výmluvný příklad najdeme ve Španělsku, kde se podobný střet odehrál na parlamentní půdě. Poté, co zemi v roce 2025 postihl rozsáhlý výpadek elektrické energie, navrhla vláda opatření k posílení stability distribuční sítě a navýšení podpory obnovitelných zdrojů.

Vládní návrh byl však nakonec zamítnut, a to i s přispěním levicové strany Podemos, která se k zelené politice jinak hlásí. Její poslanci argumentovali tím, že reformy nijak neposilují veřejné vlastnictví ani demokratickou kontrolu, a naopak obsahují hrozbu, že upevní pozici stávajících energetických hráčů.

Uvedené obavy nebyly neopodstatněné. Bezprostředním důsledkem však byla patová situace: vládní návrh byl smeten ze stolu a žádná alternativní opatření se nepřijala. Odmítání obnovitelných energetických projektů s odůvodněním, že přinášejí prospěch především energetickým gigantům, se stalo trvalou součástí rétoriky Podemos.

Všechny uvedené případy mají jeden společný rys: aktéři, kteří nenesou přímou odpovědnost za dodávky energií a politiku v oblasti průmyslu, snáze odmítají kompromisy spojené s energetickou transformací. Naproti tomu ti, kteří jsou u moci, jsou strukturálně nuceni na ústupky přistupovat.

Nevyhnutelné napětí

Evropské spory uvnitř zeleného hnutí nabývají na intenzitě v kontextu zcela specifické politické situace. Odehrávají se v kontextu celosvětové vlny odporu proti ekologické politice, což se v Evropské unii projevuje rostoucí snahou vytlačit ekologický aktivismus na okraj. Evropská unie se přitom paradoxně snaží urychlit budování energetické a průmyslové infrastruktury založené na obnovitelných zdrojích, a to navzdory mnohým rozporům ve svém vlastním zeleném programu. Popsaná dynamika pak vyvolává stále naléhavější otázky ohledně směřování evropské ekologické politiky.

Popsaný vývoj lze interpretovat jako upevňování jakéhosi evropského energetického státního zájmu (raison d’état). Členské státy a instituce Evropské unie se stále častěji zaštiťují klimatickými cíli a energetickou bezpečností a velké energetické a průmyslové projekty označují za strategickou prioritu, kterou je nutno realizovat rychle a bez zbytečných průtahů.

Takovýto trend potvrzují i nedávné politické změny, jako je zrychlení schvalovacích procesů či upřednostňování strategických projektů. V unijním politickém diskursu se už energetická transformace nezdůvodňuje ani tak ochranou lidí a životního prostředí, jako spíše nutností zachovat konkurenceschopnost prostřednictvím ambiciózních, velkokapacitních projektů.

Bude-li takovýto vývoj pokračovat cestou oslabování ekologických pojistek, pravidel územního plánování a veřejné kontroly, lze očekávat, že i vnitřní střety v zeleném hnutí naberou na síle a prohloubí se polarizace. Některé spory pak mohou přerůst institucionální rámec a nabývat ostře konfrontačních podob.

Fragmentace zeleného hnutí znamená velké politické riziko — zejména v době, kdy ekologičtí aktéři potřebují utvářet široké a stabilní koalice, aby dokázali čelit sílícímu odporu vůči klimatické politice. Má-li zelený tábor prosadit podstatné změny, musí najít společnou řeč napříč celým spektrem zastánců zelené transformace, aby se rozdílné priority dařilo překonat jednáním, spíše než aby vedly k rozkolům.

Nicméně soudržnost nelze vynucovat. Mnohé požadavky, které ve vnitřních konfliktech zeleného hnutí zaznívají, jsou zcela legitimní. Projekty energetické transformace často prosazují hráči, jejichž prioritou je korporátní zisk, nikoli ekologické či sociální zájmy — a škody, které působí, jsou zcela reálné.

Mnozí z těch, kdož se odvolávají na naléhavost situace, se často jen pokoušejí odsunout požadavky na participaci, inkluzi či spravedlnost na vedlejší kolej. Z tohoto pohledu jsou debaty uvnitř zeleného hnutí nezbytné. Nutí totiž centra moci ke konfrontaci s konkrétními místy, kde zelená transformace získává svou hmatatelnou podobu, a podtrhují zásadní argument: energetická transformace si nemůže nárokovat legitimitu, pokud při své realizaci ničí ekosystémy, biotopy a místní komunity.

Na hlubší úrovni popsané rozpory odrážejí ústřední dilema klimatické krize. Dekarbonizace musí proběhnout rychle a ve velkém měřítku, jenže aktéři, kteří by ji dokázali provést sociálně spravedlivě a s citlivostí ke krajině, momentálně nemají v rukou politickou moc.

Vzhledem k naléhavosti a rozsahu celého úkolu si lze jen stěží představit, že by energetická transformace mohla proběhnout hladce a bez třenic, a to i za těch nejpříznivějších politických okolností. Ačkoli tedy zůstává hlavním úkolem budování rozsáhlých akceschopných koalic k odvrácení klimatické katastrofy, vnitřní konflikty v zeleném hnutí budou pravděpodobně přetrvávat.

Takovéto spory nejsou chybou v procesu zelené transformace, nýbrž jen symptomem toho, jak hluboko do různých vrstev ekologické a politické reality celý proces zasahuje. Z toho důvodu je bezkonfliktní transformace nejen nerealistická, ale dost možná i nežádoucí. Skutečnou otázkou tedy není, jak střetům mezi zastánci zelené politiky zabránit, ale zda je lze zvládat tak, aby se zelené hnutí mohlo stát silou, která energetickou transformaci usměrní, namísto toho, aby ji paralyzovalo.

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On a sunny Friday afternoon in October 2023, some 70 children filed into a cool, dark tunnel in the south of Paris to help the city rehearse for its increasingly hot future.

The tunnel, part of the abandoned Petite Ceinture railway encircling the city, is always 64 degrees Fahrenheit (18 degrees Celcius), making it the perfect safe haven from the potentially lethal heat imagined outside. Once underground, each youngster was asked to simulate the effects of extreme temperatures that might become reality in their lifetimes. Some pretended to have been poisoned by food that spoiled during a power outage. Others faked the effects of carbon monoxide leaking from a faulty generator. Meanwhile, Red Cross workers scrambled to decide who to send to overwhelmed hospitals. Around them, dozens of others — fire fighters, city officials, teachers — did their best to simulate the chaos and cascading impacts a heat wave of unprecedented duration and intensity might force them to confront.

The officials who created the Paris at 50C exercise wanted children to participate because they will face the consequences of a warming world and because they ask so many questions. Crisotech

The exercise, called Paris at 50 degrees Celsius, was designed to imagine what might happen if the mercury hits 122 degrees F, something scientists warn is increasingly likely by 2100. It combined live drills and a tabletop exercise to help shape a plan to protect the city’s 2 million people from that kind of heat. Once limited to a handful of cities, these exercises are spreading as local governments stress test health services, emergency response, and essential infrastructure before temperatures reach dangerous extremes.

What Paris is rehearsing could soon confront cities across the continent. European governments are being urged to prepare for 5 to 6 degrees F (2.8 to 3.3 degrees C) of warming, a change that could push Paris toward dangerous summertime temperatures by the end of the century. 

Such heat is a global threat. Modeling suggests more than 1.6 billion people in nearly 1,000 cities could regularly face perilous conditions within three decades. Heat waves are already straining hospitals, causing outages, and paralyzing transit. In the complex systems that make up a city, even small failures can lead to larger breakdowns.

But as cities invest time and money into these exercises, one question remains: Do they actually improve preparedness?

It took Pénélope Komitès more than 18 months to prepare a drill that would last just two days. As Paris’ deputy mayor in charge of resilience, she considers such planning essential. “It was very important for us to show people that heat waves are not just something we see on the TV, but something that can happen soon, and that we need to improve what we’re going to do,” she said.

To help inform the scenario, scientists at the Île-de-France Regional Climate Change Expertise Group, which advises city leaders on climate risk, modeled what the future might look like. Other studies based on data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have largely confirmed their projection that temperatures could hit 122 degree F (50 degrees C) by the end of the century. For now, the city’s record stands at 108.68 F (42.6 C), registered on July 25, 2019.

A temperature sign over a pharmacy in Paris, France, reads 47 degrees C (116 degrees F) during a heat wave in 2015.
Pierre Suu / Getty Images

The World Health Organization estimates that heat contributes to roughly half a million deaths worldwide each year. Symptoms can quickly escalate from fatigue to dehydration to heat stroke as the body loses its ability to cool itself. For older adults and people with heart or kidney disease, that strain can be fatal. 

In Paris, much of the work of designing the simulation fell to Crisotech, a consultancy specializing in crisis exercises. It spent nine months working with the city to develop a dozen scenarios designed to anticipate where services would buckle, how agencies would work together, and which residents might be missed. The role-playing the children, from two different schools, participated in at two locations occurred on the first day; the second was dedicated to tabletop exercises among city officials and first responders. 

The simulations are designed to test a city’s response to all the things that might happen during a prolonged heat wave, such as people experiencing heat stroke and other health impacts. Crisotech

“The objective was to anticipate all possible impacts of a heat dome across Paris, to consolidate the [preparedness] measures planned by the city in the event of an extreme heat wave, test new solutions, … and identify new actions to be implemented,” said Komitès.

More than 100 organizations took part, from city agencies and emergency services to utilities and nonprofits. While other cities, including Melbourne, London, and Phoenix, have hosted similar workshops, Paris made the unprecedented decision to include citizens in the role-playing portion of the €200,000 ($236,000) event. The city held informal meetings to recruit volunteers and help residents visualize the scenario. Children were especially valuable participants, both because they will face the consequences of a warming world and because they ask so many questions, said Ziad Touat, the crisis management consultant who led the simulation for Crisotech.

Komitès also wanted to prepare Parisians for the day when all of this would unfold for real. That’s important, she said, because the pandemic showed that well-informed communities respond to a crisis more effectively. If people recognize the symptoms of heat stroke, for example, or know when to find a cooling shelter, first responders can focus on the most vulnerable, Komitès said.

Five years ago, these simulations were confined to a handful of cities in the U.S. and Europe. Now, cities around the world are getting interested, said Cassie Sunderland, managing director of climate solutions at C40, a global network of mayors focused on climate action. 

Some of the sims are sprawling operations like the one in Paris; others are more modest tabletop exercises, or hybrids that combine interagency workshops with limited role-playing. All are meant to identify points of failure before a crisis does.

A huge generator provides power during an exercise designed to simulate the surge in electricity demand Paris might experience during a prolonged heatwave. Crisotech

Success is not measured by whether a drill runs smoothly, but rather, the opposite. The most valuable ones are realistic enough to force decisions, yet unpredictable enough to expose coordination problems and infrastructure failures. For example, engineers might be brought in to determine the temperature at which train tracks expand. “Imagine if you suddenly have a huge amount of people who need additional health care, but doctors and nurses can’t get to the hospital because of transport failures,” said Sunderland.

The growth of these exercises reflects a broader concern that many cities are unprepared. “Simulating extreme heat is really important,” said Dr. Satchit Balsari, a professor of emergency medicine at Harvard Medical School. “A lot of cities stop and make heat action plans, but they actually don’t drill into how they are going to implement them, whether the funding for it exists, and if they actually have the know-how.”

Some scenarios can only be explored in a simulation, such as the question of cooling patients experiencing heatstroke. “How do you take a large human body and put it in ice? Is there a bucket that big?” Balsari said. “The answer is no, so is it a body bag? Where do you get all this ice?” What might appear simple on paper becomes a challenge unless tested.

Simulations should also consider what measures are needed after the heat breaks, Balsari said. For instance, healthcare systems will need plans for addressing the long-term impacts like increased risk of chronic kidney disease. “Have a final session that thinks about what the subsequent months look like,” he said. 

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Such challenges are compounded because most cities do not have someone responsible for crafting a unified response. A few, including Athens, Greece; Melbourne, Australia; and Freetown, Sierra Leone, have appointed “heat officers,” but most rely upon coordination among multiple departments. Rigorous testing can identify where that might break down and how coordination can be improved. Phoenix created a heat department after an exercise revealed that very problem.

Some of the cities most vulnerable to extreme heat may not have the resources to stage an expensive drill. But Touat said preparedness is not an all-or-nothing affair. Smaller, less costly efforts can still build readiness — whether by testing communications plans, mapping vulnerable citizens, or practicing how agencies would collaborate during an outage. “Don’t try to have everything at once and to spend too much money to do an exercise of this type,” he said. “It’s better to do five small ones than one big one.”

However, simulating extreme heat to improve preparedness isn’t enough, and work to decrease temperatures in cities must happen in parallel, Sunderland said. True resilience requires long-term changes that cool cities and slow climate change itself.

Even though these simulations have their limits and can come with a hefty price tag, many cities still see their appeal. 

In Taiwan, they are expanding beyond cities. The country staged a tabletop exercise last year and plans a live simulation in July to test coordination within cities and between national officials. The goal is to test whether national and local agencies can effectively work together, said Ken-Mu Chang, the deputy director general of the country’s Climate Change Administration. 

The tabletop exercise and role-playing scenario will focus on managing the health impacts of a days-long 104-degree F (40-degree C) heat wave — the kind of prolonged heat that can overwhelm hospitals and power systems. One challenge, Chang said, is designing an exercise that feels realistic enough to be useful without creating unnecessary public anxiety.

After last year’s trial run, officials realized that much of the exercise focused on agencies explaining existing plans, rather than showing how they’d respond to a crisis. “We want to make those gaps more visible and more concrete,” Chang said. “We want agencies not only to explain what they have, but also to identify what is still missing under a more extreme situation.”

Meanwhile, Barcelona, Spain is adapting the model Komitès helped develop.

Barcelona has created more shaded areas throughout the city to protect people from increasingly dangerous heat. Courtesy of Ajuntament de Barcelona

The Catalan city faces growing urgency to prepare for a hotter future. The Mediterranean basin is warming 20 percent faster than the global average, making it one of the continent’s climate hot spots. Barcelona is among the European cities expected to see the greatest number of heat-related deaths by the end of the century. 

Given that future, city officials want to develop plans to protect infrastructure, build a registry of vulnerable residents, and improve coordination. “It’s not easy when there’s so many actors and it’s not easy when the impacts are on so many different levels,” said Irma Ventayol, who leads Barcelona’s climate change department and is overseeing the simulation.

Barcelona’s Heat Plan 2025-2035 calls for the continued expansion of green infrastructure and shaded areas in public schools and playgrounds. Courtesy of Ajuntament de Barcelona

“Can we cope with waste management at 40 degrees C or 50 degrees C? Are the trucks prepared? Maybe they are, but no one has checked, so we need to ask those questions sooner rather than later,” Ventayol said. She also sees media coverage of the event as an opportunity to raise awareness among Barcelona’s nearly 2 million residents.

Beyond protecting the city, she hopes the exercise can help others. “I’d like to have a protocol that can serve other cities too, a scalable methodology that other cities can take and replicate, even for other impacts such as floods,” Ventayol said.

In Paris, the simulation — which inspired a flooding exercise that took place in October — produced 50 recommendations later folded into the city’s 2024–2030 Climate Action Plan. Some are now underway, including insulating thousands of homes and replacing asphalt parking spaces with trees; it planted 15,000 last winter alone. Even the three bathing spots along the Seine River that opened with a splash during last year’s Olympics are part of a broader effort to help residents stay cool.

Komitès is being peppered with questions from others eager to launch similar exercises. All of the lessons for the simulation were compiled into two public documents: a guide to running a heat simulation of this scale and a report detailing what organizers learned. “Everything we did is already on the internet so you’re already one step ahead,” said Touat at Crisotech.

The biggest surprise to come out of the exercise had nothing to do with infrastructure resilience or cooperation among departments. What shocked Komitès the most was how unprepared Parisians are for extreme heat.

The realization prompted what may be the city’s most important adaptation effort yet: preparing citizens, not just officials. In March, Paris opened its first Campus of Resilience with the civil protection agency and fire department. The center will host training sessions, smaller simulations, and public workshops open to all residents. “We need to talk with Parisians,” Komitès said. “To inform them, to prepare them.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Cities are rehearsing for deadly heat. Will it help when disaster comes? on May 5, 2026.

If you want to ditch your gas furnace and heat your home more cleanly and efficiently, you need to scale up one of your kitchen appliances. The first option is “electric resistance heating,” better known as a space heater, which acts like a giant toaster to warm a room instead of bread. The second is a heat pump, which extracts warmth from even freezing outdoor air and pumps it indoors, like a refrigerator moves heat from inside the box to the kitchen. (That’s why the back of your fridge feels warm, by the way.)

Energy experts say that to bring down greenhouse gas emissions and improve human health, we need to replace toxic gas furnaces and boilers with heat pumps ASAP. Less talked about, though, is that we also need to replace those giant toasters with giant reverse refrigerators, which would make homes more comfortable and more efficient, and therefore cheaper to heat.

According to a new report from the nonprofit energy group RMI, one in five homes in the United States is heated primarily with electric resistance heating. Replacing those devices with heat pumps would save households an average of $1,530 a year, or $20 billion annually across the country. (The calculations included only single-family homes, not multifamily units like apartment buildings.) At the same time, demand on the electrical grid would fall significantly, while total carbon emissions from homes making the switch to heat pumps for climate control and water heating would plummet by about 40 percent. “There’s a lot of benefits to the grid, which translate to lower rates as well,” said Ryan Shea, a manager in RMI’s carbon-free buildings program. “Then, of course, there’s using less energy.”

Electric heat pumps work their magic with a trick of physics: By changing the pressure of refrigerants, they draw warmth from outdoor air or liquids coursing underground, then bring it indoors. (In the summer, the process reverses, cooling an indoor space like a traditional air conditioning unit.) They’re ultraefficient because unlike a furnace or space heater — which generate warmth by burning fossil fuels or using electricity — these appliances simply transfer heat from one place to another. Accordingly, heat pumps have a “coefficient of performance,” or COP, of around three, meaning they produce three units of heat for every unit of electricity used. In other words, they’re 300 percent efficient. That’s three times as efficient as electric resistance heating, which has a COP of one, while even the most efficient gas furnaces operate well below that.

In all kinds of homes, heat pumps are replacing electric resistance heating or gas furnaces. If you don’t have ducting, heat pumps come in units that embed in walls to exchange between outdoor and indoor air. If you have ducting, an indoor unit replaces the furnace and connects to an outdoor one, which exchanges the heat. If you also have an AC unit that has reached the end of its life, subbing in a heat pump will give you both cooling and ultraefficient heating. “That’s kind of the right trigger point for a lot of people to start thinking about heat pumps,” Shea said, “is when their air conditioner needs replacing.”

The next generation of heat pump is targeting apartment-dwellers, too. A company called Gradient, for instance, has been working with building owners and public housing authorities to deploy its units, which slip over window sills like saddles and plug into a standard wall outlet. The appliance can swap in for old window AC units, giving tenants clean heating, not just cooling.

The idea is to quickly and cheaply deploy these appliances in large buildings, without landlords having to retrofit each unit if they, say, get rid of the structure’s central fossil-fuel boiler. Gradient says that in less than two weeks, it installed 277 of them in a Providence, Rhode Island public housing development that previously used electric resistance heating. “It is very straightforward and a huge energy win for them,” said Vince Romanin, the company’s founder and chief technology officer. “You’re not just saving money. You are providing a dramatically better service, because you’re adding cooling.”

Still, the RMI report notes, the U.S. builds nearly 1.5 million homes each year, 200,000 of them with electric resistance heating. It also installs a million AC units annually in homes with electric resistance heating, when those could instead be heat pumps that’d save occupants money. The trick, then, is for policymakers and utilities to incentivize these efficient appliances with rebates and the like. That’s what helped Maine reach its goal of installing 100,000 heat pumps two years ahead of schedule — by next year, it hopes to install 175,000 more. 

The U.S., though, can’t simply replace all of its furnaces and space heaters with heat pumps and call it a day, energy experts said. It must happen alongside a push to make homes more efficient, like by installing proper insulation and double-pane windows. That is, a home needs to retain more heat in the winter and cool air in the summer, so a heat pump would need to run less. “Step one, don’t burn fossil fuels in your home, basically,” said Gernot Wagner, a climate economist at Columbia Business School, who wasn’t involved in the new report. “Step two: insulate, insulate, insulate. And both of those go hand-in-hand.”

The grid, too, needs upgrades if heat pumps are to reach their full potential. For one, ideally you’re powering them with electricity coming entirely from renewables like wind and solar, otherwise you’re still burning fossil fuels to warm homes. (Though to be clear, because heat pumps are so efficient, this is still better than sticking with gas furnaces.) And two, heat pumps join electric vehicles and induction stoves in increasing demand on the grid. Utilities are already making upgrades to handle all this electrification, like installing huge battery banks to store renewable energy to use when the sun doesn’t shine and wind doesn’t blow. They’re also experimenting with vehicle-to-grid technology, or V2G, which allows EVs to send power to the grid when demand is highest.

If the U.S. is really going to wean itself off fossil fuels, it needs all these systems to work in concert: More renewables, more batteries, fewer giant toasters.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline American homes need heat pumps, not space heaters on May 5, 2026.

Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz was defeated by a grassroots movement that faced down systematic intimidation in an extraordinary act of popular mobilisation. The attempt to restart democracy in Hungary stands a better chance of success than at any time since 1989. Will Péter Magyar take the country in the right direction?  

The events in Budapest on the night of Viktor Orbán’s election defeat on 12 April were pivotal and unforgettable. Hundreds of thousands of people flooded the streets in a carnival-style fiesta. This level of popular enthusiasm was seen neither in October 1989, when the new republic was proclaimed, nor in May 1990, when the first democratically elected government was formed. “It was like winning the World Cup,” witnesses said. 

Younger generations, who have spent all their adult lives under Orbán’s rule, campaigned hardest for change and feel that they are the main winners. Generation Z’s overwhelming support for Péter Magyar’s Tisza party spread to older age groups, too, and was a game-changer across the country. 

According to political scientists Andrea Szabó and Zoltán Gábor Szűcs-Zágoni, what happened on 12 April 2026 was “not just a critical election, a landslide or a change of government. It can truly be described as an electoral revolution: a bloodless constitutional political shift marking the beginning of a new era driven by the collective power of society.” 

What made this “electoral revolution” possible? What consequences is Viktor Orbán’s downfall likely to have in Hungary, Europe and beyond? And how easy will it be to restore democracy to a country in which the division of powers has effectively collapsed? 

Changing course 

The Hungarian constitutional system is modelled on Germany’s Kanzlerdemokratie and gives the prime minister a particularly strong position vis-à-vis the other parts of government. However, after 2010, Orbán effectively turned Hungary into an “absolute republic”, a term coined by political scientists Gábor Török and Péter Farkas Zárug to describe a system combining electoral democracy with the unrestrained use of state resources and a personality cult surrounding the leader.1

János Széky wrote in Élet és Irodalom that Magyar’s victory in fact ends Viktor Orbán’s 28-year reign, which began during his first term in office between 1998 and 2002. But the significance of the 12 April vote pertains to an even larger period of recent Hungarian history. These elections also mark nearly four decades since the transformation from a one-party system to a Western-type liberal democracy in 1989. 

A former frontrunner of westernisation in the east-central European context, Hungary began to lose ground in the 2000s. The overwhelming vote for change can be interpreted as a call for another push towards the West after the previous attempt in 1989–90, which started promisingly but ultimately failed. 

The 12 April election also marks the end of decades of fruitless and detrimental political rivalry between a triumphant radical right and an increasingly frustrated and powerless Left. The “cold civil war” that Orbán has been waging since 2004 with his left-wing counterpart, the former prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsány, has finally ended in mutual destruction. Gyurcsány’s Democratic Coalition received just one per cent of the popular vote and will not be represented in parliament. Orbán is also leaving parliament after 36 continuous years as an MP. 

For the first time since 1920, there will be no left-wing or liberal parties in the Hungarian parliament. The political landscape now comprises three different shades of right: EU-compatible, moderate conservatism (Tisza); anti-EU radical illiberalism (Fidesz); and neofascism (Mi Hazánk, or “Our Motherland”). 

The absence of left-liberal opposition in the Hungarian parliament sends a grim message to the rest of Europe. If left-wing political parties cannot connect with voters, those voters will have to look elsewhere for political representation. Almost two-thirds of the 3.4 million Hungarians who voted for Tisza came from liberal, left-wing or green backgrounds. There are several new MPs in the 141-strong Tisza group with left-wing and/or liberal leanings. Despite its conservative profile, represented by Magyar himself, Tisza is a surprisingly diverse party, where leaders and rank-and-file activists from different backgrounds coexist. 

Political scientist Balázs Jarábik has argued that the elections demonstrated Hungary’s ongoing democratic potential. But if Péter Magyar truly intends to effect change, he must address the long-standing illiberal tendency to grant the government almost unlimited power. Will Magyar make wise use of the complex network of legal instruments that could easily transform a democratically elected prime minister into a plebiscitarian leader and potential autocrat? And can he resist the temptation to use his supermajority to consolidate his personal power? 

These are the real questions awaiting answers. Viktor Orbán’s authoritarian path was not an anomaly or a bug in the system, but the extreme consequence of a constitutional mindset anchored in the idea of a dominant party and “stable” governance. 

A defeat for Putin 

Following the vote, Fidesz pundits began arguing that Orbán’s swift acceptance of the results showed that the system was far less authoritarian than his opponents claimed. However, this is contradicted by the evidence. For almost two years, Fidesz had employed a variety of tactics, legal and illegal, to suppress the dissent voiced by Tisza. Since 2024, the Hungarian government had exploited the powers of the security agencies and received covert support from Russia and, to a lesser extent, the United States to destroy the only genuine contender and secure Orbán’s fifth consecutive term in office. 

Orbán’s ultimate decision not to crack down on the opposition was motivated not by respect for the democratic will of the Hungarian people but because of an unprecedented display of force from Europe. It is tempting here to draw a parallel with the changes of 1989. However, in 1989, the peaceful transformation of communist Hungary into a multi-party democracy was supported by all the major powers and took place at the end of the East–West ideological divide. During this election campaign, by contrast, both Putin’s Russia and Trump’s United States openly backed Fidesz. 

Since late February, Orbán had been plagued by damaging press leaks. These originated from an entity of which Hungary was still a part, but which Orbán had started to label as his “main enemy”: the European Union. Several European security agencies cooperating on the Hungarian file had intercepted phone conversations between Orbán’s foreign minister, Péter Szijjártó, and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, as well as between Orbán and the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. They revealed a pattern of strategic cooperation and moral collusion that made Orbán’s presence in Brussels undesirable. 

The exposure of the public misconduct of senior Hungarian officials went far beyond the well-known issue of systemic corruption. The failed geopolitical ventures of the Orbán system were exposed, including the attempted armed rescue of former Bosnian–Serb leader Milorad Dodik in 2025, which was thwarted by decisive American intervention, and the scandal surrounding the planned Hungarian military mission to Chad. While rumours could be heard in diplomatic and military circles about Hungarian involvement in the African operations of the infamous Wagner Group, the truth appears to be more straightforward. The deployment of 200 military personnel to a high-risk combat zone of little strategic importance to Hungary may have been driven by the glory-seeking ambitions of Gáspár Orbán – the son of the outgoing prime minister and then-army captain – who wanted to save local Christians regardless of potential losses among his fellow soldiers. 

According to analysts in both the West and Russia, Orbán’s departure represents a significant strategic setback for Putin. Although Hungary is not a major military or economic power, it has played a crucial political role in advancing Russian interests. Moscow has lost its most valuable and long-cultivated “insider” within the European Union and NATO. As a legitimate European leader rather than a puppet, Orbán was the Kremlin’s most effective tool within the West. 

Moscow secures loyalty by offering cash, business opportunities, and political attention. Amplifying fears of migration, war, and the loss of national identity has helped to translate pro-Kremlin sentiments into local politics across the region. Now, with the collapse of the invincibility myth, other pillars of Russian influence in East-Central Europe may also be under threat. 

Moscow has lost its most valuable and long-cultivated “insider” within the European Union and NATO. […] Now, with the collapse of the invincibility myth, other pillars of Russian influence in East-Central Europe may also be under threat. 

Péter Magyar has said his government will seek pragmatic cooperation with Russia, particularly on energy, and an immediate “crusade” against Moscow is not in sight. Nevertheless, Hungary will cease to be a “spanner in the works” in the EU, enabling more coherent decision-making. Putin’s loss of his only real foothold in Europe is a significant setback for Russian foreign policy. 

The revolt of “deep Hungary” 

Much has been said and written about Péter Magyar, the mole within the system who has exposed its moral decay and corruption more than anyone else. Gábor Bruck, one of Hungary’s leading election campaign strategists, has said that in his many decades in the field, he has never witnessed a performance of such calibre. For around two years, Magyar travelled the length and breadth of the country – literally on foot for weeks at a time – visiting no fewer than 700 locations and reaching millions of citizens in person. Many Hungarians living outside Budapest had never had the opportunity to shake hands with or speak to a national politician. 

Counting on the support of Budapest – a long-standing stronghold of the anti-Fidesz liberal left – Magyar instead focused on the hidden, invisible Hungary of 2,500 villages and hundreds of small towns with populations of just a few thousand. The election results show that support for Tisza was spread across the whole country and not limited to the cities. Orbán’s electoral and cultural stronghold, “deep Hungary”, turned its back on him and embraced the vision of radical change promoted by Magyar. 

However, it would be reductive to focus solely on the top level of the Tisza Party. Magyar deserves historic credit for daring to issue an existential challenge to Orbán’s power within the unfair electoral system Orbán had established. Nevertheless, he had something that Orbán’s power machine lacked: a genuine grassroots movement with widespread support. In the years to come, Tisza will likely be studied as the model of a “popular front” democratic mobilisation, capable of uniting right, left and centre behind a common cause. 

The party’s structure was organised into three distinct yet loosely connected tiers. The first was Péter Magyar, a political animal with innate charisma, a huge capacity for work, and exceptional strategic instincts. András Körösényi, the doyen of Hungarian political scientists, pointed out that Magyar’s extraordinary success highlights not only the fragility of an autocratic system, but also an increasingly widespread and pronounced trend towards plebiscitary democracy. 

The second tier, which has so far been almost imperceptible, concerns the party as a formal political structure. With only a few dozen members, the party could easily be described as an electoral committee centred around its founder and natural leader. 

The third tier is perhaps the most intriguing. Since 2024, over two thousand “Tisza islands” have spontaneously formed in hundreds of Hungarian localities, including villages where there has probably been no political activity since 1945-46 or the turbulent days of the 1956 uprising. 

Although it is impossible to estimate the exact number, it is safe to say that hundreds of thousands of people have been actively involved in opposition politics over the past two years. This is in a country with barely eight million potential voters. The Tisza Islands have no legal status and are not formally affiliated with the small party headquarters. The members form a grassroots civic community of equals and have become a powerful example of informal, bottom-up democracy in a country that has lost its institutional democracy. After long complaining about the lack of civic commitment and interclass solidarity in Hungarian society, social scientists have finally found a topic of great interest: the emergence of a politically oriented social force outside the traditionally progressive capital city of Budapest. 

The best example of grassroots action came on election day, when Tisza mobilised 50,000 unpaid volunteers. Despite the personal risks, they dedicated themselves to political change – the first time this has happened in recent Hungarian history. Almost 5,000 civilians patrolled the polling stations most affected by Fidesz’s well-established vote-buying scheme. As the documentary film A szavazat ára (“The price of the vote”) revealed, this ranged from bussing voters to polling stations to handing out alcohol and drugs to addicts. Fidesz reportedly even threatened to take away people’s jobs or custody of their children. Vote-buying gained the ruling party more than 200,000 votes in 2022; its campaign strategists hoped it would secure up to twice that number in 2026. 

The presence of these volunteers, who were travelling around by car or motorcycle, managed to curb the phenomenon. In areas where “electoral tourism” had been most heavily monitored, observers prevented tens of thousands of people from voting fraudulently. 

Tisza is also leading a quiet gender revolution in a country where politics has always been heavily male-dominated. Women make up one-third of its parliamentary group, while only 17 of Fidesz’s 135 MPs during the previous parliamentary term were women. According to the party’s list, successful businesswoman Ágnes Forsthoffer will become president of the National Assembly, while the former diplomat and energy expert Anita Orbán has been designated foreign minister. 

The greater presence of women in the Tisza is not the result of compliance with “gender quotas”, but a sociological reality and cultural breakthrough. Female activism has played a decisive role in establishing and operating Tisza. These women are primarily middle-aged and active in the private sector. Dissatisfied with the state of the country, they have the time and practical experience of managing daily life to contribute to the community. 

Democratic culture 

All this said, the damage inflicted on representative democracy in Hungary between 2010 and 2026 will be long-lasting. Orbán’s System of National Cooperation found fertile ground due to the established pattern of patronage-based autocracy and the lack of functioning democratic models. 

The largely spontaneous social mobilisation that brought about the downfall of the Orbán regime is not enough to overcome the longstanding weakness of Hungary’s democratic culture. Magyar’s parliamentary supermajority enables him to dismantle the former power system brick by brick without putting the legal system under strain, as happened in Poland after the defeat of PiS in 2023. The question is whether he will be able to restrain his own almost unlimited power, or whether his charismatic leadership of the party will backfire when serious issues concerning democratic standards arise. 

Perhaps even more importantly, the new government will need to democratise the education system and political discourse. Mutual hate, grievances and scapegoating must be replaced by a new collaborative spirit. The hundreds of thousands of young people who voted for democracy and integration with the West should be given the opportunity to learn about democracy while attempting to implement it. 

The support received by the new elite on 12 April brings great historical responsibility. Magyar and his government will need to study the errors made during the 20-year experiment that began in 1989–90 in order to avoid repeating them. For example, the political reintegration of the former authoritarian elite should be preceded by a process of lustration; crimes should be prosecuted and publicly exposed. 

Above all, however, the new government must abandon the anti-democratic practices deeply rooted in the past century – from Miklós Horthy to Viktor Orbán and János Kádár – and establish a democratic state capable of addressing the numerous challenges of the current one. 

This article first appeared in Eurozine. It is republished here with permission.

1. Péter Zárug Farkas, Gábor Török: Orbán ​kora. Vázlat egy abszolút köztársaság felemelkedéséről, Budapest, L’Harmattan, 2026. ︎

The new economy of the Amazon Channel Comment brendan 5th May 2026 Teaser Media

The gleaming electric motors rolling off the production line at a factory in northeastern England offer an answer to one of the energy transition’s thorniest challenges.

The Advanced Electric Machines (AEM) plant outside Newcastle is at the forefront of building a new generation of motors made without rare earths, a group of 17 nearly indistinguishable metals used to manufacture most of the high-performance permanent magnets that power electric vehicles.

CEO James Widmer, a former aerospace engineer who founded the company in 2017, compares heavy reliance on rare earths in EV motors to the ill-fated decision to add lead to gasoline to resolve a technical issue.

“Putting rare earths in motors is the same thing,” Widmer told Climate Home News in a video call from his office. “You don’t need it, but somebody did it because it was easy.”

Widmer’s firm is among a handful of startup companies working with researchers to eliminate the need for rare earths in magnets and motors – offering a pathway to ease pressure on new mining and refining for one of the world’s most concentrated value chains.

Unease over China’s grip on supplies

As countries strive to reduce their climate-warming emissions by switching to electric transportation, demand for rare earths is soaring. That is increasing pressure for mining new resources and raising concerns about China’s supply chain domination.

China controls more than 90% of global rare earth separation and refining capacity and makes nearly all of the world’s permanent magnets – one of the building blocks of advanced technologies from EV motors and wind turbines vital to the energy transition to microchips, AI data centres and fighter jets. 

An employee assembling a motor at AEM’s factory outside Newcastle (Photo: Advanced Electric Machines)

Beijing spooked Western governments last year when it announced new export restrictions on supplies of rare earths and technological know-how in response to US tariffs on imports of Chinese goods. Automakers were left facing shortages. 

While some of Beijing’s retaliatory curbs were suspended within months, China’s willingness to use its industrial clout over technological chokepoints to advance its geopolitical objectives has injected momentum into the efforts of companies such as AEM to find alternatives to rare earths.

“The best way to avoid the problems with these materials…isn’t to drill, baby, drill. The best way is just not to use them in the first place,” said Widmer. 

Cutting that dependency would help shrink the environmental footprint of EV motors by keeping costly-to-extract rare earths in the ground, Widmer said.

Rare earth-free motors?

The auto industry had already been manufacturing electric motors using rare earth magnets for 20 years when Widmer set up AEM after conducting PhD research at the University of Newcastle.

Toyota’s Prius model, which is widely recognised as the first mass-produced hybrid passenger car, was launched in 1997 and used rare earth magnets in its motor.

About 80% of modern EV drivetrains now rely on high-performance rare earth permanent magnets to convert electricity into torque, according to a 2024 study, fuelling demand for the metals as EV adoption gains traction across the world, from Europe to South Asia.

Rapid electrification has doubled demand for magnet rare earths since 2015 and it is projected to increase by another 30% by 2030, according to the International Energy  Agency (IEA). It recently put the cost of adequately diversifying the supply chain at $60 billion over the next decade.

Demand for EVs and concerns over oil dependence have rocketed back onto the political agenda after the Iran war sparked unprecedented disruptions to global oil markets, reigniting simmering debates about supply chain sovereignty for energy.

James Widmer CEO of AEM, at the company’s factory outside Newcastle (Photo: Advanced Electric Machines)

Contrary to their name, rare earths are found nearly everywhere on the planet in small quantities. However, larger, economically viable deposits are difficult to find and costly to extract.

On top of the expense, getting rare earths out of the ground is energy-intensive and generates toxic waste and sometimes radioactive by-products. This has led to large-scale environmental damage in China and Myanmar, where unregulated mines have become a major source of rare earth elements and are driving environmental destruction and violence, according to NGOs.

Lighter, greener, less risky

Instead of rare earth magnets, AEM’s motors rely on electrical steel laminations – thin stacked sheets of specialised metal – that create a magnetic field when powered.

The company says its electric motors are more energy-efficient and, in some configurations, more power-dense than traditional rare earth motors and reduce the emissions and polluting waste associated with permanent magnet motor manufacturing processes. 

“And we’ve gotten rid of this enormous liability in the supply chain at the same time,” Widmer said.

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The company, which manufactures electric motors for passenger cars and trucks as well as for the agricultural and aerospace sectors, expects demand for its technology to grow as buyers become increasingly aware of the risks of supply chain disruption and the environmental harm caused by rare earth mining.

AEM’s motors are already being used in commercial vehicles, for example in truck axles in the Netherlands, and the company aims to expand into new regions through a joint venture with Indian manufacturing firm Sterling Tools, a company spokesperson said.

An employee working on a AEM rare earth-free motor in the company’s factory outside Newcastle (Photo: Advanced Electric Machines) ‘Reinventing the wheel’

Some 8,000 kilometres from AEM’s factory floor, a group of Silicon Valley engineers has been inundated with enquiries since Beijing announced its export restrictions on technologies to mine and smelt rare earths, magnet production and recycling. 

As manufacturers worried about shortages, the rare earths supply chain bottleneck became a board-level conversation and executives started scouting for alternatives, said Ankit Somani, a former Google engineer and the co-founder of Conifer.

“Every startup needs an unfair advantage – and that was ours,” he told Climate Home News, adding that the challenge is now to keep up with demand. 

The San Francisco-based startup’s technology removes rare earths from electric scooters and small delivery vehicles by placing the motor directly inside the wheel hub, an innovation it describes as “literally reinventing the wheel”. 

Co-founders Ankit Somani and Yateendra Deshpande speaking at Conifer’s research and development facility in Sunnyvale, California (Photo: Conifer)

To transfer power inside vehicles, the company uses a refined form of iron oxide – the same basic compound as rust – known as a ferrite magnet. 

Somani said the technology reduces the costs of manufacturing electric vehicles by eliminating the need for expensive rare earth supplies. 

Conifer’s first production line already produces 75,000 motor components a year in the city of Pune in western India, the hub of its manufacturing operations, where electric two- and three-wheelers are booming. 

To keep up with demand, the company is planning to open a 250,000-unit capacity facility, Somani said. 

The next generation of magnets

At Minnesota-based Niron Magnetics, which produces permanent magnets using iron nitride instead of rare earths, vice president Tom Grainger said last year’s supply chain disruption had been a wake-up call.

“What was always possible but never quite material – the risk of geopolitical interference in magnet supply chains – became real in 2025,” he told Climate Home News. 

In contrast to magnets that depend on Chinese rare earth supplies, the company’s iron nitride magnets are made from the abundant and inexpensive elements, iron and nitrogen.

Niron estimates that iron nitride magnets could replace roughly two-thirds of the global permanent magnet market.

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Niron Magnetics’ first consumer-facing magnet, used in a professional loudspeaker, was rolled out earlier this year and the firm has already received investment from automotive giants General Motors, Stellantis and parts provider Magna International. 

The company is developing its first full-scale manufacturing plant in Sartell, Minnesota, which aims to produce up to 1,500 tonnes of magnets annually when it opens in 2027, targeting consumer electronics, as well as the automobile sector, data-centre cooling pumps, robotics and drones. 

By Chinese standards, that is a modest start: a typical factory in China can produce between 5,000 and 20,000 tonnes of rare earth magnets, said Grainger. But Niron’s model is designed to be replicated anywhere with basic industrial infrastructure. Unlike rare earth processing, it requires no proximity to a mine or complex chemical permitting. 

“The goal…is a factory that has the scale to deliver in sufficient quantities for large programmes – with the economics that come with scale,” Grainger said. 

The firm is already looking for a second site in the US to build a 10,000-tonne per year facility, equivalent to approximately 1-2% of the global permanent magnet market share, according to the company. 

Governments ramp up support

Anxious to protect their industries from potential supply gaps, Western countries are supporting research into innovative rare earth alternatives.

Jean-Michel Lamarre, a team leader at Canada’s National Research Council, said  the government’s science agency, which has been developing rare earth-free motor technologies, is working on using 3D printing to produce magnets. 

Lamarre said that while removing rare earths from electric motors significantly reduces the costs of materials, making new designs commercially viable remains a challenge. 

Difficulties include scaling up manufacturing capability and responding to rapidly changing market conditions, a spokesperson for Canada’s Department of Natural Resources said.

Conifer’s motor assembly plant in Pune, India (Photo: Conifer)

The US, Canada and the European Union have announced billions in subsidies and financial support to mine and produce more of the materials themselves, as well as funding research on rare earths substitutes. The US government is also investing heavily in American rare earths and magnet producers.  

Recycling rare earth elements from discarded computers, motors and wind turbines also has a role to play in boosting domestic production, said Nicola Morley, a professor of materials physics at the University of Sheffield in the UK, who advises major manufacturers including Siemens and Volkswagen.

Recycling alone has the potential to reduce the need for primary rare earths supplies by up to 35% by 2050, according to the IEA.

Today, around 1% of the rare earths used in end-products is recycled because of technical and economic challenges. But startups are seizing on interest in creating circular supply chains that reduce reliance on China.

Better than rare earths

While recycling may be a relatively quick way for major markets to bolster their supplies of magnet metals, some researchers expect scientists to come up with groundbreaking alternatives to rival rare earths within a matter of years.

At Georgetown University in Washington DC, physicist Kai Liu and his team are working to create new materials for magnet production using a machine that bombards atoms of up to six different metals onto a surface simultaneously – like six games of pool played at once. As they land, the atoms bond into new crystal structures, which Liu’s team tests for magnetic properties. 

Their research has already led to a discovery of magnet materials, Liu said, adding that he is hopeful for further breakthroughs by the scientific community.

“I am cautiously optimistic that within the next five to 10 years, the community might find something comparable or better than rare earths,” he said.

Main image: An employee working on an AEM motor at the company’s factory outside Newcastle (Photo: Advanced Electric Machines)

The post The energy transition has a rare earth problem: These startups are solving it appeared first on Climate Home News.

Seventy-two-year-old Namgaukum, from India’s northeastern state of Nagaland, cherishes rare childhood memories of riding an Asian giant tortoise (Manouria emys phayrei) through the forests near his Old Jalukie village.

For the then five-year-old, the nearly two-foot-long carapace of the animals — the largest living tortoise in mainland Asia — often resembled a greyish-brown boulder in the forest about a foot above the mushy leaf litter and undergrowth.

“I would sit on it in the jungle, and after some time suddenly sense stirrings below,” he recalls. First a dark-brown head would cautiously pop out of the “boulder,” followed by a thick, muscular neck and sturdy, scaly legs pressing into the forest floor. “Then we would slowly amble forward, its beak nibbling grass and tender shoots,” he laughs, reminiscing his childhood thrill of riding the giant forest reptile.

At the release event of the critically endangered Asian Giant Tortoises in the Old Jalukie Community Reserve last August. Photo: Newme Shamma, used with permission.

The village elder remembers the tortoises were still abundant in the forests those days, and laments that they had almost disappeared by the time he was 13 or 14.

However, six decades later, a younger resident beams at the “homecoming” of this critically endangered species to the same Old Jalukie forests near his village — now a community reserve. “They are like our children now,” says 22-year-old Haileulungbe, proud to be acknowledged as a “Tortoise Guardian.” Other youths and members of the Zeliang tribe are equally overjoyed at the revival of the species in the wild.

This recovery follows a landmark initiative under the India Turtle Conservation Programme. Last August 10 captive-bred juvenile Asian giant tortoises (each 5–6 years old) were reintroduced into a community-owned and managed reserve rather than the usual state-run protected areas.

The program — implemented by the Nagaland Forest Department in collaboration with the Turtle Survival Alliance Foundation India at Old Jalukie Community Reserve in Peren district — aims to “rewild the growing number of captive-bred individuals and save them from extinction through community stewardship,” says its director, Shailendra Singh.

From Pets and Meat to Freedom

The effort began in 2018 with a captive-breeding facility under the ITCP at Nagaland Zoological Park. It was founded with 13 individuals of wild origin — seven females and six males — recovered from Tribal households, where they were kept as pets, and from local markets, sold for meat. Today the facility hosts the world’s largest assurance colony of Asian giant tortoises, with 114 individuals.

“The program reached its turning point when some villagers voluntarily donated tortoises they had kept as pets in their homes for captive breeding, and the community that once exploited them was sensitized to restore and nurture the species back in the wild from the brink,” says Singh.

Seven to eight months post-release, all the radio-tagged tortoises are reported to be healthy and surviving. Initially kept within a 10,000-square-foot bamboo enclosure in the Community Reserve for acclimatization, they were released into the wild on Feb. 20 this year.

Left to right: A female Asian Giant Tortoise guards her nest made of leaf litter and plant material. They are among the few tortoises in the world with the unique habit of building nests above the ground. Photo: Shailendra Singh, used with permission; A sensitization workshop with local communities conducted by program leaders and the heads of the forest department. Photo: Sushmita Kar, used with permission: Ten radio tagged juveniles of Asian Giant Tortoise prior to their release in the Conservation Reserve. Photo: Shailendra Singh, used with permission.

They now roam free in the wilderness of the Old Jalukie Reserve’s 370-hectare stretch of hilly semi-evergreen forests, with dense vegetation comprising native trees such as Indian chestnut, Nepalese alder, Karoi tree, and various oak species. The biodiverse landscape has been owned and managed by local tribes since the 1980s from 15 surrounding villages, with elders at the helm.

Vanishing Giants

The species faced a grim situation even two decades ago. Over the past 135 years, the tortoises have lost nearly 80% of their historic range across South and Southeast Asia due to habitat loss, hunting, and the pet trade.

Only about 250 mature individuals of the Asian giant tortoise may survive in the wild globally, according to Shailendra Singh, director of TSAFI. Of the two recognized subspecies, Manouria emys emys is extant in parts of Malaysia, Sumatra, and Borneo, while the larger, darker M. e. phayrei ranges across parts of Thailand, Myanmar, Bangladesh, and Northeast India.

Singh says that between 2012 and 2026, only 20 adult individuals have been reported from the northeastern states of Nagaland, Manipur, Assam, Meghalaya, and Mizoram, although inaccessible hilly terrains and social conditions may have limited surveys and detectability. He estimates that around 100–150 adults may survive in the region.

Building Support

Villages in the region traditionally hunted the tortoises for generations, so securing the support of local communities was crucial if the reintroduction program was to succeed, points out Sushmita Kar, turtle biologist and Project Coordinator, ITCP for Northeast India.

“The Forest Department helped bring local communities on board, keep them motivated, and take them along on this conservation journey,” says Chisayi, divisional forest officer, Peren (from the Indian Forest Service). He explains that the department works with communities at the grassroots through capacity building and livelihood opportunities, envisioning a future where Old Jalukie can be projected as a “tortoise village” in the state.

“As major stakeholders, local communities become more responsible and accountable for conserving the species and the habitat as a whole,” he adds.

Left to right: Successful artificial incubation of the eggs of the Asian Giant Tortoise at the captive breeding centre in Nagaland Zoological Park. Photo: Lalit Budhani, used with permission. Photo: Lalit Budhani, used with permission; Tiny hatchlings of Asian Giant tortoise emerge after artificial incubation. Photo: Sushmita Kar, used with permission; Asian Giant Tortoises on the damp forest floor after their release at the Old Jalukie Community Reserve. Photo: Shailendra Singh, used with permission.

Releasing the tortoises in a community reserve rather than a conventional protected area was a conscientious decision, admits Kar. The approach also followed lessons learned from the first phase of giant tortoise reintroduction at Intanki National Park in December 2022. Of the 10 captive-bred juveniles released then, only one was later found at the forest periphery; two were trampled by elephants, while the fate of the rest remains unknown.

Unlike national parks, community reserves do not restrict access for local villagers. To help make villages aware of the importance of the species, youths are given hands-on field training for regular monitoring of the tortoises. “For a species where every individual counts, these youths, with their almost ‘one-to-one involvement’ with each, develop familiarity and a sense of belonging, ensuring their long-term survival,” she says.

Besides, during the monsoon, when forests become difficult to access, these grassroots conservationists can still move through the terrain and remain vigilant, guided by their lived experience and traditional knowledge.

Meanwhile, unlike most Indian states where forests are largely under government control, nearly 88% of Nagaland’s forests are governed and managed by local communities, clans, and individuals through village councils and traditional institutions. According to official reports, the state has 407 community-conserved areas  safeguarded by traditional laws, as well as 148 formally notified community reserves — the highest in the country and accounting for more than 50% of all such reserves nationally.

Such programs as the ITCP offer good examples of how community reserves can be effectively used for the revival of such critically endangered species, according to Kenlumtatei, Range Officer, Jalukie Range. “It is also bringing about an attitudinal change among community youths, who are gradually moving away from traditional hunting to protect forests and wildlife,” he adds.

Tortoise Guardians

For youths like Haileulungbe and Iteichube from the Old Jalukie Conservation Reserve, it means their enhanced role and commitment as its custodians.

Donning olive-green T-shirts printed with “Tortoise Guardian,” Haileulungbe sets off for the forest at 8 a.m., when the reptiles are most active. He carries a radio receiver, while the project field researcher Victor carries the antenna connected to it. The duo scans for signals from their radio-tagged “giant children” to pinpoint their locations. “Two of the tortoises have already moved about 300–500 meters from the enclosure site,” he says excitedly as they walk me through the forest.

They have been trained to maintain daily records of each individual tortoise’s GPS location, along with observations of their movements and behavior.

Apart from following signals on the radio receiver, they also look for nibble marks on leaves, their favorite bamboo shoots, or mushrooms on the forest floor, or shallow depressions in wet grasslands and puddles, explains 33-year-old Iteichube, another tortoise guardian. “All such signs enable us to identify their basking, foraging, and resting sites,” he adds.

A community awareness event with local villagers, forest department officials and scientists. Photo: Haileulungbe, used with permission.

With adults weighing about 36–37 kilograms (79–82 pounds), they are often described as the “small elephants of the forest” because of their thick, scaly legs that push through dense vegetation, a process that also aids seed dispersal and forest regeneration.

They are among the few tortoises in the world with a unique nesting habit: building nests 2-3 feet above the ground with leaf litter and plant material to lay about 25–70 eggs per clutch. Most tortoises, by contrast, nest by digging holes in the ground.

Seeing their behavior further inspires the guardians. “We started by simply tracking them, but today we realize how important they are in keeping our forest vibrant and alive with their unique ways,” says Iteichube.

The Next Generation

Inspired by the rewilding success of Asian giant tortoises in Nagaland, similar efforts are now underway in neighboring Manipur. Early results are already emerging: A captive-breeding facility set up at the Manipur Zoological Garden successfully produced 28 hatchlings through artificial incubation in August 2025.

As the hatchlings grow, scientists are also carrying out site assessments and searching for Asian giant tortoises in the wild to identify potential release sites of captive-bred individuals. “We aim to repopulate Manipur’s forests with giant tortoises, as in Nagaland, and eventually across its historic range in the Northeast India, through community participatory approach,” says Kar.

An adult male Asian Giant Tortoise pops its greyish-brown head and forelimbs out of its carapace. Photo: Shailendra Singh, used with permission.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The village elder Namgaukum could not be happier with the return of the tortoises to their native forests.

“Earlier we would hang its large, beautiful shells outside our homes to ward off evil and as a symbol of pride, but today we consider it a good omen and blessing for our community to see it flourish in the wild,” he says.

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

 

Strategic ‘Matchmaking’ Protects the World’s Smallest and Rarest Wild Pig

The post ‘Tortoise Guardians’ Protect Rare Giants appeared first on The Revelator.

As Hurricane Helene roared through the mountains of western North Carolina in September 2024, Devon ran from one side of his house to the other, listening to the sound of trees snapping in the dark.

The wind whipped the steep hill his family lived on in Asheville, rattling the windows and cracking limbs. Pine trees fell like dominos, 20 in all. Five of them took the porch and a corner of the house with them. The creek behind the family’s home was rising fast, and anything caught in it was swept away.

Inside, Devon’s wife and their daughter, who is now five,  hid in a closet, crying as the house shook. Devon shouted over the wind as he tried to figure out what would fall next. He was inside the house, but also somewhere very far away, reliving memories he had been trying to put away.

“For me, it was very triggering,” he said. “I felt like I was in a war situation.”

Devon, an Iraq war veteran who moved to the mountains from Florida in 2019, asked to be identified by only his first name, as anonymity is a core component of 12-step programs. The 41-year-old had returned from the Middle East in 2006 with post-traumatic stress disorder and a traumatic brain injury that pushed him to numb himself however he could. It started with pills, then heroin, and eventually a combination of heroin and cocaine. “I was so physically addicted,” he said. “The sickness was unbearable. I couldn’t imagine life without drugs.”

In Asheville, he slowly found his way back from the precipice. He joined Narcotics Anonymous, attended regular meetings, and began to confront his trauma in therapy. He and his wife, who had moved to Asheville with him, had a daughter in 2020. It wasn’t always easy, but life with his family, in their house in the woods, felt like it was creeping toward stability. 

Everything changed after the storm.

Hurricane Helene fractured many of the support systems that people in recovery, like Devon, relied on to stay sober. Jesse Barber / Grist

Disasters like Hurricane Helene level communities and upend even the stablest lives. For people recovering from addiction, they can also fracture so much more: 12-step meetings, treatment programs, transportation, and the social networks that are essential to maintaining sobriety. When that scaffolding breaks down, the risk of relapse and overdose rises. 

Penn State University sociologist Kristina Brant has spent the past few years studying the long-term impacts floods can have on communities, finding “an increase in overdose deaths that persists for a decade after a flood.” Grief and trauma can linger for years, she said. “Those are significant triggers that can derail recovery.”

The threat is especially acute in the Appalachian region, a mountainous swath of the country that includes 13 states stretching from New York to Mississippi. Throughout the region, a long-running drug crisis has already taken a devastating toll. Though overdose death rates in Appalachian counties have declined slightly alongside national trends, mortality for people in their prime working years still exceeded the national average in 2023 by 52 percent. These trends are driven by limited access to health care, physically demanding work, and economic hardship. In six western North Carolina counties, including Buncombe, for example, overdose mortality was more than 36 per 100,000 residents as of 2022. 

Increasingly severe storms and flooding, fueled by a warming world, are compounding those vulnerabilities, damaging not just infrastructure but the support systems people rely on to stay alive.

For people like Devon, the weeks and months after Helene unraveled lives they’d spent years building.

Recovery from substance use disorder hinges on stability. Routine keeps people connected to the relationships and services that make long-term sobriety possible, and builds the kind of network where someone notices if a chair is empty.

Across Appalachia, that support system is already stretched thin. Rural communities don’t have the redundancies that make it easy to hit another meeting, find another clinic, or line up another therapist. Long travel distances and high poverty rates create additional barriers.

Disasters further strain the system. Annual hospitalizations for substance use disorders jumped 30 percent after Hurricane Katrina and continued rising for years afterward, especially in neighborhoods that experienced the greatest destruction and displacement. 

“When you factor in a disaster like Helene or other flooding where infrastructure is really impacted, we’re just amplifying that existing barrier a billion-fold,” said Erin Major, a doctoral candidate in health services research at Boston University who studies substance misuse in Appalachia. “It became genuinely impossible for quite a few of these patients to access their care.”

Keep reading Helene frayed the safety net for people who use drugs. This community wove it back together. Katie Myers

In Devon’s walk-up apartment in Arden, a town just south of Asheville, his pit bull, Qball, trotted across the gray carpet to meet him. Devon is tall and thin, with close-cropped hair and an understated, honest way of putting things. He said he understands how much routines matter, because he had spent years building his.

He returned from Iraq in 2006 after two years in a scout platoon. Back at a base in coastal Georgia where he enrolled in college, he began to understand what he’d brought home with him. His brain injury and PTSD plagued him with nightmares and made it difficult to hold a job. He began to self-medicate. “Once I started using, you know, the harder opiates, I would say I was using against my will at that point,” Devon said, scratching his dog’s ear. He overdosed and nearly died several times.

Devon’s formal dress jacket hangs on a door of his apartment.
Jesse Barber / Grist

His relationships frayed under the strain, and for a time he lived on the street. He and his wife separated; her job didn’t pay well, he’d lost his, and they were in debt. In a bid to save their marriage and finances, the couple moved to Asheville, where his wife’s family lived, in 2019. The city’s recovery resources, which are abundant compared to elsewhere in the South, offered the promise of support, consistency, and a fresh start. 

Over time, Devon began building a new life. He is on disability and can’t work, but he and his wife were able to buy a house. Suboxone, a daily prescription medication available at most pharmacies, eased his cravings for opioids. Twelve-step meetings allowed him to find support and celebrate progress. He and his wife welcomed their daughter into the world in 2020. While marriage and recovery were sometimes bumpy, he felt he was building something lasting.

Hurricane Helene blew all of that apart.

In the weeks and months after the storm, the routines that had anchored Devon’s recovery began to shift. His 12-step group moved its meetings online for a couple of weeks. When it resumed gathering in-person, he struggled to attend, bogged down by the demands of repairing his house. With his time consumed by cleaning up from the storm, he stopped regularly going to individual therapy. Financial worries took the place of personal goals.

“There was a huge interruption,” Devon said. Online meetings are “not the same as being in person. You know, like when I like to go in-person in my home group… I can do service like either chair a meeting, help set up literature, help greet people, help set up chairs.”

That kind of service is central to the recovery pathway that’s worked for Devon, and it had become a vital part of his life. He tried to fulfill it by helping neighbors rebuild from the storm. He spent his days clearing debris, organizing disaster supplies at community spaces, and delivering them to people in harder-hit areas. “We were just pitching in the best we can, and I feel like I was using my experience in the program,” he said.

He also met new people along the way — including church volunteers who helped remove the five trees that had fallen onto his house. At first, the spirit of cooperation brought people together. But as the months passed, that warmth faded and the losses began to settle in. The Federal Emergency Management Agency gave his family an emergency stipend of $750 to cover immediate expenses, like food and water, but they’d already spent $20,000 on repairs. Even with insurance, they realized they’d have to refinance the house to keep it. 

By last summer, the strain had become too much. Devon and his wife decided to sell the house,  for $30,000 less than they’d hoped. Amid the back-and-forth with the insurance company, their own fights escalated, and they filed for divorce — not uncommon after a life-changing disaster. Because North Carolina law requires a couple to live separately for one year before a divorce can be finalized, Devon moved into a hotel. He found himself alone more often. 

He managed to avoid relapse, but that meant treading carefully with hobbies that summoned the urge to drink, like playing poker. As the summer of 2025 dragged into fall, he felt spiritually adrift. Between his divorce and the costs of the storm, he’d lost about $100,000. It was all too much. It had been years since he’d felt this hopeless. “I was suicidal,” he said.

For many people in recovery, relapse can be more dangerous than their initial drug use. After a few days of sobriety, tolerance starts to drop. Those who have gone through treatment are sometimes more likely to overdose, with the immediate first few days of relapse being the most dangerous. Over time, the mental health impacts and compounding losses of a disaster can push people further off course. 

In the early days after the storm, communities, volunteers, and recovery groups across the region sprang into action, temporarily filling the gaps left by upended routines and the slow trickle of federal help.

Researchers often observe a curious “honeymoon phase” after a disaster: A time of intense social cohesion as people united by shared loss come together to help each other. It’s months or years down the line when the pileup of trauma and loss begins to complicate that cohesion. 

John Kennedy saw that shift unfold in Buncombe County.

John Kennedy sits in front of boxes of Narcan, which his organization, Musicians for Overdose Prevention, helps distribute. Jesse Barber / Grist

Kennedy, a guitarist, and his wife Cinnamon Kennedy, a drummer, spent years distributing naloxone, which can quickly reverse an opioid overdose, to nightclubs, music halls, and other venues throughout the county. Such work is called harm reduction — providing the education and tools to help people who are actively using drugs prevent infection, illness, and death. The project began after John lost several friends and his brother to overdoses. The Kennedys rely on the tight network of musicians and venues to get those supplies to the people who need them.

John Kennedy drove me around Swannanoa, a small, largely working-class town outside of Asheville. Even a year and a half after the storm, there are reminders of how the social fabric has frayed. 

The last music venue in Swannanoa closed after the storm, and others in the area also have closed or aren’t booking bands.. One survey found that across 23 counties, small businesses lost an average of $322,000 during Helene, and many couldn’t withstand it. The closures of bars and venues has left fewer places to congregate. Kennedy worries that may mean more people are using alone. Research shows that hurricanes and tropical storms can cause excess mortality for as long as 15 years, so the region is still only at the beginning of the aftermath.

John Kennedy walks among what is left of Salvage Station outdoor music venue along the French Broad. Jesse Barber / Grist

Kennedy can’t help but reflect on what’s been lost. “Just the ability for people — like a church service, like a job — to show up and come in and be able to check on everyone, check in on everyone, see how people were doing,” he said, driving past Silverados, one of the venues he relied on to carry naloxone until it closed permanently. One after the other: shuttered, shuttered, shuttered. 

Kennedy pointed out the dozens of RVs parked along the roadways, all hosting people who lost their homes to the storm. A field where there was once a trailer park. Ossified muck and debris where there was once a gas station, a farmers market, a woodworking shop, a veteran’s clinic.  “It’s not what it was.”

Kennedy still delivers naloxone, but more often to venues in Asheville, where it’s easier to find people. The community feels battered, he said, but he hopes it is slowly regrowing.

In the immediate aftermath of the storm, many opioid treatment providers struggled to track patients and keep records up to date, said Major, the Boston University doctoral candidate. Some providers reported that the number of people in treatment remained stable, or even increased as street drugs became harder to find. Others have lost patients — one provider saw 15 patients drop out or move away. Just some eventually returned.

How to support people with substance use disorder during and after disaster 

Learn how to recognize and respond to opioid overdoses. Harm reduction groups or syringe exchanges may offer first aid and sensitivity training, as does the Red Cross.

Have naloxone (also known by the brand name Narcan) on hand and know how to dispense it. 

Understand the medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD), to help reduce stigma around their availability and use. Buprenorphine is an evidence-based treatment, but requires healthcare providers and pharmacies to maintain an adequate supply to ensure access when disasters hit. 

Ask your local officials how people with substance use disorder are considered in disaster planning. Do shelters have low barriers to entry and no abstinence requirements? Are volunteers trained on how to reduce stigma and respond to overdoses? 

Grist’s Disaster 101 Toolkit — a comprehensive guide to extreme weather preparation, response, and recovery — includes a detailed section on how people with substance use disorder can stay safe during disasters and how community members, volunteers, and other responders can best support them. Read, share, and easily customize it for your community.

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FIRST at Blue Ridge, a halfway house in nearby Black Mountain, saw about 30 residents leave to deal with the aftermath of Helene, though record-keeping was difficult in the chaos. Some residents lost the homes they’d hoped to return to. Others, placed there as a condition of probation, had to navigate spotty cell service to notify court officials and get permission to go assist their families. A few simply walked off, hoping to hike home. Most eventually came back, but one or two never returned. The center administers drug tests when people come or go, and found that several had relapsed during their time away.

Similar disruptions have been reported across the mountains, especially where the legal system is involved. Cordelia Stearns, chief medical officer at High Country Community Health in Watauga County, said displacement can set off a chain of events that ends in incarceration for the patients treated at her clinic.

One had been living in a shed after Helene and accidentally burned it down trying to stay warm through the winter. He walked hours to reach the clinic and keep up with treatment for opioid addiction. “He did actually make these heroic efforts to stay in care,” Stearns said.

Despite that, he was incarcerated multiple times for nonviolent drug offenses. He’s currently out of touch again, and, she assumes, probably in jail. She hopes he’s OK, she said, choking up. “It’s always a little nerve-racking when you can’t reach people.” 

Stearns has seen similar patterns play out repeatedly, particularly among people who are unhoused. Access to medications like Suboxone or methadone often depends on the policies of individual jails, and incarceration can bring people back into environments where drugs are readily available. “I’m not totally sure who it’s supposed to be helping,” she said.

In Buncombe County, community health worker Brandi Hayes has seen how quickly this turmoil can unravel recovery. She works with the county’s Post-Overdose Response Team, which checks on people who have recently survived an overdose and steers them toward treatment. Like many in this field, she has a family history with addiction that makes the work personal.

Brandi Hayes (left) works for the Buncombe County Post-Overdose Response Team, which works with recent overdose survivors. Her organization offers treatment services, like Suboxone (right). Jesse Barber / Grist

In the weeks after Hurricane Helene, she and her colleagues slogged through the muck to check on patients, deliver essentials like food and water, and keep people connected to treatment and care. Some stayed on track. Others disappeared. One case in particular has stuck with her: A man who had been doing well in his treatment for opioid use, and had even gotten his license and a car back after a period of suspension for legal issues.

“Then the storm came,” Hayes said. “He had to take care of someone else that wasn’t in the sober mind state that he was in.” He quit going to treatment, started using drugs again, cycled through jail several times, and lost his car. 

“I don’t even know where he’s at right now or what he’s doing, ’cause he’s fallen off so bad and not going to appointments and things like that,” Hayes said. When that gets harder for the people she serves, she takes notice. “It’s very easy to backslide.”

The same pattern has played out across Appalachia before. When floods tore through eastern Kentucky in 2022, Jeremy Haney lost nearly everything: his apartment, most of his belongings, and Troublesome Creek Stringed Instrument Company, where he built mandolins by hand. He is in recovery from addiction to painkillers and methamphetamines. A recovery-to-work program had led him to the factory in 2019, and building the instruments had become the bedrock of his life. When the floodwaters receded, the factory was temporarily closed, and it didn’t look likely to reopen soon. He wondered what he’d do next.

“My first initial thought is, ‘OK, our factory’s gone. We’ve got no job,’” Haney recalled thinking. He didn’t want to go back to where he was from in Morgan County, all the way across the state. “I’ve put all this work and effort into relocating and rebuilding my life here in Knott County, and now I’m going to have to start all over again.”

Doug Naselroad, who runs the recovery-to-work program, dreaded telling roughly a dozen men that their jobs had disappeared. Instead, he found funding from the Eastern Kentucky Concentrated Employment Program, a combination of state and federal Department of Labor funding, that allowed them to work in disaster relief. “Nobody missed a paycheck,” Naselroad said. “But they had to rethink what they did for a living, you know, and for months they just slogged away in the mud.”

Haney spent that time cleaning and reorganizing the luthiery and its instruments, determining what could be kept and what had to be thrown away. But the flood had upended the rest of his life. He received $1,800 from FEMA to replace his lost possessions. But after his landlord opted into a FEMA program designed to reduce future disaster risk, the building was cleared and everyone had to move out. Haney spent months searching for a new place to live. The factory eventually reopened, allowing him to return to his usual job as a luthier, but much had changed.

Nearly 9,000 houses and apartments were destroyed in the Kentucky flood, and about 31 percent of the homes in Knott County were damaged. Rental housing was scarce. Even after being approved for federal homeowners’ loans, he struggled to find something within his budget. “There just ain’t that many homes around here that would be cheap enough for me to be able to afford the payment,” he said. His landlord had another apartment come open, but the situation felt unstable.

He worried he might have to return to Morgan County, where he could fall back into addiction. The cleanup job helped keep him grounded. He eventually qualified for an unusual state post-disaster housing program for flood survivors that allowed him to buy his first home last year. He moved in just before Christmas, more than three years after the flood. He credits his support network with helping him get through the long stretch in between — helping him move, find new furniture, and giving him social support.

“That’s a big thing in recovery,” Haney said. “Asking for help.”

For Devon, community connections have made all the difference. He has struggled with depression and long bouts of hopelessness over the last year and a half, but he hasn’t gotten high. 

The waning afternoon light moved across the gray carpet of Devon’s apartment as he tried to recall a time when he really felt tempted to use again.

“I’ve thought about it, but very rarely,” Devon said. “If I do, I have a support system where I can call somebody. I would really have to be in a bad place to use.”

Devon sits in his apartment. Jesse Barber / Grist

He leans on people who’ve survived their own crises — divorces, bankruptcies, other disasters. While some friends have returned to drug use, he’s been grateful for his sponsor and fellow members of Narcotics Anonymous. “This is, like, why we do what we do — when shit hits the fan,” he said. 

His life now is quieter. He keeps up with appointments and stays in touch with friends in recovery. He attends weekly meetings, which he sometimes leads. He’s also returned to individual therapy, which helps him cope with lingering anxiety from the hurricane.

It isn’t the life he once imagined, but for now he has made peace with it. “I try to focus on my daughter,” Devon said. “I’m just doing the best I can.”

Being with her gives his days purpose. He looks after her while his ex-wife is at work, and he’s structured his life and routines around her activities — ballet, gymnastics, kickboxing. For Devon, the structure helps him keep moving forward.

This coverage is made possible through a partnership between Grist and BPR, a public radio station serving western North Carolina. 

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Hurricane Helene shattered lives — and the systems that keep people sober on May 4, 2026.

Kimberly Treadaway hoped she was prepared for the storm. Hurricane Helene was heading right for her home in Weaverville, North Carolina, and she worried about having enough food and water, and about her 5-month-old son. But something else weighed on her — access to Suboxone, a prescription medication she must take daily to reduce the cravings and withdrawal symptoms associated with opioid use.

“If I didn’t have my medication, I wouldn’t feel OK,” she said.  

Treadaway is about a decade into her recovery. Maintaining sobriety depends upon a great many things remaining consistent: relationships, housing, employment, and, especially, access to the treatment she needs to avoid a relapse.

She wasn’t just concerned for herself. Her partner was also on Suboxone, as were “a lot of our friends.” Many had a stockpile, or a plan to taper their dosage if they suddenly lost access. Withdrawal is always unpleasant and often dangerous. The thought of navigating the aftermath of a natural disaster with fever, chills, vomiting, and other symptoms was frightening.

 “Helene just made it really, really real,” she said.

Treadaway recounted the story in the office of Holler Harm Reduction, alongside fellow staffer Hush Sinn and volunteer Oscar Smith. The grassroots organization in Marshall, often known simply as “Holler,” strives to meet people who use drugs where they are, providing clean needles, naloxone, and other supplies to minimize the threat of an overdose or infection. Treadaway joined the staff in November 2024, right after Helene hit. In the wake of the storm, Holler was part of a loose network of similar organizations that mounted an ad hoc but essential response — to ensure that people who use drugs or are maintaining sobriety got the care and supplies they needed.

Kimberly Treadaway, left, and Oscar Smith, sit beside a stack of needle boxes at Holler Harm Reduction in Marshall, North Carolina.
Jesse Barber / Grist

As the initial barrage of rain and wind gave way to isolation and infrastructural breakdown, the systems Treadaway and so many others rely on remained interrupted for weeks. 

But something else took their place. Across western North Carolina and beyond, people like Treadaway joined doctors, nurses, and others on ATVs, in trucks, and occasionally on foot in delivering care and supplies. They did so in ways that official emergency responders, constrained by training, resources, logistics, or mandate, could not. They did what they felt was urgent and right, and in that, they revealed what disaster response might look like if it were designed with those realities in mind.

For people in recovery or still actively using drugs, survival depends on a connection to care, routine, and the people and systems that make such things possible: pharmacies; clinics, rehabs, therapists, and 12-step meetings. 

Across Appalachia and the South, that web is already strained. A flood of prescription opioids, followed by heroin, fentanyl, amphetamines, and other drugs, brought skyrocketing addiction rates and death in the early 2000s. Though efforts to combat overdose have reduced death rates since 2022, rural areas hit by hospital closures and dwindling access to basic health care still see high rates of these and other so-called “deaths of despair.” With climate-fueled disasters growing more frequent, the same fragile system is tested again and again.

Keep reading Hurricane Helene shattered lives — and the systems that keep people sober Katie Myers

Treadaway, who is 33, grew up in a rural area outside Boone, near the Tennessee state line. Shy and raised on an abstinence-only education, she had been taught to avoid drugs at all costs without ever learning how they differed or how they affected the body. All she knew was that they felt good and made her more at ease in life and at parties. She began using opiates and other substances in high school, alongside friends and romantic partners. She eventually dropped out of school, and stopped doing other things she loved, like art, theater, and dance. One day, when she was 19, she awoke to find her partner lifeless in bed next to her. It shook her into seeking help.

She went back to school and tried to bring balance to her life. It wasn’t until around 2017 that she found a welcoming place in the harm reduction community, where she could share her experiences and wisdom. Harm reduction aims to reduce the risks associated with drugs — infection, illness, death — and promote understanding, respect, and compassion for people who use them. She found its philosophy of helping people without judgment appealing. Treadaway felt accepted for sometimes existing in a gray area between active use and recovery, a process that’s rarely linear. 

“It wasn’t a clear-cut journey,” she said. “But after that, I let go of certain substances and then let go of some others, and worked my way into a place in life that felt good.”

Treadaway first volunteered with The Steady Collective, a harm-reduction group based in Asheville, and later served on its board. There, she found like-minded people who embraced her first-person perspective on complex health and social issues. She now works as the organizational director for Holler.

Holler Harm Reduction distributes supplies like Naloxone and drug testing kits (left), comfort items like lip balm (center), which treats dry-mouth symptoms caused by withdrawal medications like Suboxone, and clean supplies to prevent infection (right).

Many of her friends navigate the same space between use and recovery, occasionally moving back and forth between the two. In the harm reduction community, Treadaway said, they find forgiveness, patience, and love that the greater world doesn’t always have for them.

She and others in the community brought that approach to the aftermath of Helene, seeking to show their neighbors that they were there, loved them, and wouldn’t let them fall. The organization, along with other western North Carolina groups like Steady Collective and Smoky Mountain Harm Reduction, quickly mobilized. As soon as the roads were passable, truckloads of basic supplies arrived from all over. A region’s worth of people, increasingly accustomed to the disruptions of flooding, got to work distributing them.

“The scope of mutual aid is just like harm reduction,” said Hush Sinn. “The norm in mutual aid is that we show up for each other. That nobody says, ‘That’s not my problem.’”

Flooding had washed out roads and cut communications, making it difficult or impossible to reach clinics or refill prescriptions. Those who could often found drugstores and clinics closed, or unable to verify insurance because of internet outages. For people in treatment for opioid addiction, the consequences were dire: Methadone typically must be dispensed daily at a clinic, while Suboxone is tightly regulated as a controlled substance.

“It was like hundreds of dollars” that people had to pay if they couldn’t apply insurance, Treadaway said. Most couldn’t afford that. With supplies uncertain, she reduced her own dosage. Some people pooled what they had and shared it with friends — helping each other through a crisis felt more important than following laws that prohibit such actions.

How to support people with substance use disorder during and after disaster 

Learn how to recognize and respond to opioid overdoses. Harm reduction groups or syringe exchanges may offer first aid and sensitivity training, as does the Red Cross.

Have naloxone (also known by the brand name Narcan) on hand and know how to dispense it. 

Understand the medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD), to help reduce stigma around their availability and use. Buprenorphine is an evidence-based treatment, but requires healthcare providers and pharmacies to maintain an adequate supply to ensure access when disasters hit. 

Ask your local officials how people with substance use disorder are considered in disaster planning. Do shelters have low barriers to entry and no abstinence requirements? Are volunteers trained on how to reduce stigma and respond to overdoses? 

Grist’s Disaster 101 Toolkit — a comprehensive guide to extreme weather preparation, response, and recovery — includes a detailed section on how people with substance use disorder can stay safe during disasters and how community members, volunteers, and other responders can best support them. Read, share, and easily customize it for your community.

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Treadaway ended up leaving for her son’s safety. Others, like Sinn and Smith, remained. They found people were doing surprisingly well, given the circumstances — not because the system was holding, but because many were accustomed to its failures. They were used to interruptions in electricity, water, or housing.

“People who use drugs are scrappy,” Treadaway said. “They are used to having to fight for their basic needs, which isn’t a good or correct thing, but I had this really deep sense of faith and trust in their survival skills that maybe other community members haven’t had to ever use.”

Sinn, who is on the staff at the Steady Collective and has a history of substance use, was drawn to harm reduction not only to save lives but to ensure no one faces the crushing loneliness that can come with substance use. That seemed particularly important in the wake of Helene. “There’s nothing worse than feeling like nobody gives a shit about you,” Sinn said.

State health officials also found themselves scrambling to meet urgent needs. Tyler Yates, the state opioid coordinator for the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, watched treatment centers across the state suddenly also become depots for first aid supplies, clean water, and gasoline, filling the community’s basic survival needs.

Yates, like many in his line of work, comes to the job with personal experience: He started using opioids and other substances when he was 11. He went to treatment in 2017, for what he said may have been the eighth time. It was around then that he found a home in harm reduction work. 

After the storm, Yates knew what people who use drugs needed to survive, and was frustrated by how bureaucracy stood in the way. For instance, he wanted to quickly get sterile water to intravenous drug users, fearing that without it, they could face infection, sepsis, or death from water containing bacteria and other contaminants. But the request went nowhere. According to Yates, state emergency officials were reluctant to fund supplies beyond the usual disaster checklist. “When we submitted the order, it was denied by the emergency response folks because they didn’t think that FEMA would reimburse them,” he said.

North Carolina Emergency Management declined to comment and referred all questions to the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. Summer Tonizzo, a spokesperson for that agency, told Grist in an email that it collaborates with local jurisdictions, health departments, and community organizations to assist those with substance use disorder during disasters by helping provide naloxone and offering crisis counseling in shelters.

“The State Emergency Response Team makes decisions regarding the distribution of emergency health supplies based on the immediate public health needs and circumstances at hand,” wrote Tonizzo. “The reimbursement process occurs after the response phase has ended and involves separate processes.” 

After a month of back and forth, Yates and his team ended up receiving supplies donated by local and regional harm reduction groups and delivering them throughout western North Carolina. “There’s so much red tape,” he said. His team did its best to fill supply and training gaps, like distributing naloxone to rural volunteer fire departments and first responders who often lacked the training and supplies. 

The state also saw more contamination in the illicit drug supply, driven by a drop in availability of fentanyl and other opioids due to damaged roads and landslides. In places like Haywood County, health providers said xylazine — a cheap, widely available tranquilizer that slows breathing and can cause severe tissue damage — flooded the supply. Health care professionals and harm reductionists scrambled to warn people of the risk, and provide test strips to keep them safe.

Training and preparation were also an issue when it came to longer-term disaster relief volunteers. Several health providers in western North Carolina told Grist they saw people who used drugs — or even those taking medications for opioid use disorder — being turned away from shelters by volunteers who believed they were keeping others safe.

Tonizzo said her agency received no reports of people being wrongfully ejected from shelters for being on medications used to treat opioid use disorder, but that use of illegal drugs “can be restricted” and is grounds for removal.

Buncombe County officials said the county’s response plan prioritizes access to water, sanitation, and shelter for everyone, and it works with harm reduction groups to maintain access to safe use supplies. Although the county handled the initial coordination of emergency shelters, it handed that task off to the Red Cross, which did not respond to written questions, in the weeks after the storm. “Coordinating the various needs of the shelter population was no small challenge,” a Buncombe County spokesperson said in an email. “As the needs of shelter residents became more apparent, the Red Cross and our teams worked to relocate individuals needing specialized support to a more appropriate shelter setting.”

Wreckage from Hurricane Helene in Swannanoa, North Carolina. Jesse Barber / Grist

The storm’s overall effect on public health was mixed. Hospitalization data showed some illnesses worsened, particularly chronic illnesses such as diabetes and mental health conditions like anxiety. Emergency room visits for overdoses and alcohol use also rose, with opioid overdoses up about 21 percent in the three months after the storm, according to an analysis by Appalachian State University geographer Maggie Sugg and environmental epidemiologist Jen Runkle, who works for the North Carolina Institute for Climate Studies, a research arm of NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information. Because ER data reflects only those who needed and could access care, the real impact may have been greater.

Still, more than a dozen health care providers, harm reductionists, and peer counselors told Grist they were astonished that things weren’t worse, given the multitude of health risks the people they care for face. Some even said they saw fewer overdoses and cases of severe withdrawal than they expected.

“Some of my patients fared way better than they had in years,” said Cassie York, a peer support counselor at a Mountain Community Health Partnership clinic in rural, low-income Mitchell County. “Because there was food available, there were resources available, no questions asked.” 

After disasters, a safety net of free emergency health clinics blooms and fades. But between those moments lies what many described as a glimmer of possibility — a kind of equality in access to care among people caught in addiction or early recovery, who are often uninsured or avoid seeking medical care due to fear of stigma and arrest.

Red Cross workers distribute supplies at Asheville-Buncome Technical Community College after Hurricane Helene. Jesse Barber / Grist

Doctors worked out of community centers and churches, writing prescriptions more freely as patients bypassed the usual restrictions on access. The state Board of Pharmacy, acting on Governor Roy Cooper’s declaration of an emergency and Drug Enforcement Agency approval, allowed doctors and pharmacists to provide emergency refills of regulated medications , including some of those used to treat opioid use disorder.

People came in with chronic infections, injuries, and diseases like AIDS — conditions that can arise from intravenous drug use — and were treated, free of charge. For a brief moment, many experienced what it meant to have free, nonjudgmental care. “Word of mouth spreads fast, you know? ‘Hey, there’s a doctor at the church, go get your prescription,’” York said. 

But if that access was easier than usual, it was because there were people who made the decision to make it happen, and local and state officials willing to provide the resources. In other states throughout the Appalachian region, communities with high overdose rates and growing disaster risk face a very different set of political circumstances.

Not every county, or state, in the region provides harm reduction programs with the same level of support found in Buncombe County. Some actively inhibit it. West Virginia, for instance, passed restrictions in 2021 that threaten needle exchange programs, and a bill banning them is under judicial review. In Tennessee, state laws prohibit these exchanges, which help intravenous drug users avoid infection and disease by providing sterile injection supplies, from operating near schools or parks. Such restrictions limit how many syringe exchanges can operate, and often push them into less accessible areas. Many people in rural Tennessee drive across the state line seeking help, further straining services in western North Carolina.

The myriad challenges of meeting immediate needs make it difficult for harm reductionists to plan for the next crisis. Health workers in West Virginia, which has the nation’s highest overdose rate, described feeling as though their heads are being held underwater. “It can be hard to think about climate emergency, because so many people who I see are in a state of emergency all the time,” said Lake Sidikman, who coordinates harm reduction programs at the Charleston Women’s Health Center.

Even in Buncombe County, widely cited as a lodestar for substance use services, gaps remain. Helene highlighted the lack of a concrete plan for providing services during a crisis. 

That gap has sparked efforts to rethink disaster planning. Harm reductionist Kathryn Humphries works with others in her field and officials at all levels of government and grassroots groups on disaster response. She said such plans often overlook people who use drugs and the unhoused, despite their heightened vulnerabilities and overlapping needs. She is among those helping lead a national conversation about how to better draw community organizations and those with direct experience with drug use into preparedness efforts.

To Dr. Shuchin Shukla, a physician and addiction medicine researcher who previously practiced family medicine in Buncombe County, disaster preparedness starts with the pillars of overdose prevention: naloxone to reverse overdoses, medications and supplies such as Suboxone and clean needles, and peer support from trusted people in the community. Strangers cannot arrive after a disaster and expect people in active addiction or early recovery to trust them. “You have to bring a ton of support to the people they already know and rely on,” he said.

He’d like to see family members, trusted neighbors, and others with firm connections in the community trained to be first responders and given the necessary resources. Such methods worked after Hurricane Helene; the challenge is institutionalizing and funding these programs, which are just as important as access to food, water, and shelter when disaster strikes, at the state and federal level. “People will go through withdrawal from medication and fentanyl before they’ll go through withdrawal from food,” he said.

A medical professional with Respite at Haywood Street Congregation gives wound care to a community member in Asheville, North Carolina. Addiction researcher Shuchin Shukla thinks organizations with strong community ties should be included in disaster response plans.
Jesse Barber / Grist

He also wants states to maintain emergency reserves of medications and safe-use supplies, and to provide basic first aid and medical resources. Ideally, he’d like to see trained staff, volunteer organizations, and federal emergency response teams prepared to distribute these resources.

Shukla sees this as increasingly urgent. Opioid settlement funds — more than $57 billion that drugmakers, distributors, and pharmacy chains paid to all 50 states for their role in the overdose crisis — are abundant now, but annual disbursements will decrease each year and expire in 2038. Federal support for substance use services has fluctuated under the Trump administration. After the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration saw as much as $1.9 billion in grants cut and later reinstated, the agency faced a wave of layoffs and resignations; the 2027 federal budget proposes further consolidation and reductions. 

“We can’t predict what’s going to happen,” he said, “but we can make sure that if stuff were to happen, we have various levels of resilience.”

For people who work in harm reduction, the long tail of Helene has been hard to watch. The people they rushed to serve, and who benefited from the sudden abundance of free health care, have begun to fall back into isolation.

“When all of that finished, it was like, not only did they go back to being uncomfortable, but it was even harder because they’d kind of gotten used to having needs met as we all should, you know?” Treadaway said.

As quickly as a health care safety net unfurled, it began to fray.

“There are now folks where their living situations with like five to seven people are falling apart, and they’re just ending up with nothing,” Smith said. “Now they have to pick up the pieces and figure it out.”

The donations have slowed, but the need hasn’t. Last winter, the Holler crew and other nonprofits delivered propane and water alongside harm reduction supplies. A year and a half after the storm, they are still meeting basic needs for survivors even as they brace for the next disaster. They can only hope they’re ready when it comes.

This coverage is made possible through a partnership between Grist and BPR, a public radio station serving western North Carolina. 

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Helene frayed the safety net for people who use drugs. This community wove it back together. on May 4, 2026.

Since 2018, when it bought the chemical manufacturer Monsanto, the German conglomerate Bayer has set aside billions to settle legal claims that the active ingredient in the company’s weedkiller Roundup has caused cancer and other health issues among its users. More than 100,000 plaintiffs across the U.S. have filed lawsuits alleging a cancer link, and in February, the company agreed to settle a class action lawsuit for $7.25 billion.

Last week, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in one case that didn’t reach a settlement. John Durnell first sued Monsanto in 2019, arguing that he developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma because of persistent exposure to glyphosate in Roundup, which he had regularly sprayed throughout his neighborhood for 20 years. In 2023, a Missouri jury found Monsanto liable for failing to warn users of the cancer risk from glyphosate, and awarded Durnell $1.25 million in damages. The company has denied the claims and issued a series of appeals ever since.

Under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act — known as FIFRA — the Environmental Protection Agency is authorized to govern the sale and labeling of pesticides. The federal law bars pesticides that are “misbranded,” or lack warnings that may be necessary to protect health and the environment. According to the law, states cannot impose labeling requirements that differ from or go beyond what federal law already mandates for these products. Manufacturers must register pesticides and herbicides with the EPA before selling them, and when a product is registered, the agency signs off on its labels. 

Durnell’s case rests on a Missouri law that bans the sale of dangerous products without adequate warnings. Monsanto argued those claims should have been preempted by FIFRA, since the company registered its product with the EPA and received approval for its label. The central legal question before the Supreme Court, then, is whether the EPA’s approval of that label overrides the Missouri state law. 

The justices appeared divided on the case during oral arguments. Several, including Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, pressed attorneys on whether preemption would block states from responding to changing research. “Could we have a world in which a product that has been registered, the label is consistent with what the agency has said is appropriate at the time of registration, but let’s say a new research study comes out at some point between when the EPA is statutorily required to look at it again that casts doubt on the safety of this product?” Jackson asked Paul Clement, a former solicitor general and a lawyer for Monsanto, appearing skeptical of the company’s claim.

Clement responded by saying, “I think the way that you deal with that and the way the agency deals with that is either through some amended registration or some cancellation process which could be subject to judicial review.” Justice Amy Coney Barrett then put a finer point on Jackson’s inquiry: “But could the agency come after you for misbranding if you didn’t comply with your statutory obligation to give the updated information to the EPA?” 

“Absolutely,” Clement responded. “But it wouldn’t be a misbranding action.”

Justice Brett Kavanaugh appeared to side with Monsanto’s argument that varying state requirements undermine federal uniformity. “Do you think it’s uniformity when each state can require different things?” Kavanaugh asked Ashley Keller, the attorney representing Durnell. 

The EPA’s handling of pesticides has been fraught and shapes the stakes of the case considerably. Glyphosate is America’s most-used herbicide on agricultural crops — more than 280 million pounds of the chemical are applied to roughly 300 million acres of farmland every year, according to the EPA. In 2021, the EPA did a biological evaluation on glyphosate and found 1,676 endangered plant and animal species are likely to be harmed by the chemical. J.W. Glass, a senior EPA policy analyst at the conservation nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity, which contributed to an amicus brief filed in support of Durnell, said the sheer scale of glyphosate use is the problem, and the ripple effects can show up not only in the environment, but in people’s bodies. Farmworkers face some of the most acute exposure risk, a byproduct of working on farmland where the use of herbicides like Roundup is a routine part of crop production, according to Nezahualcoyotl Xiuhtecutli, a senior grassroots advocacy coordinator at the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition. 

“The indiscriminate use of it, and how much we use it, is the environmental issue,” said Glass. “You have these cases where people are spraying it directly into waterways for weed control.”  

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Glass said there are “plenty of issues” in the EPA’s pesticide labeling process. Two analyses his organization co-released with the Center for Food Safety in March found that the EPA has routinely left cancer warnings off pesticide products even when its own assessments have identified cancer risks. “Does EPA actually label pesticides when they are found to be a carcinogen? And the answer is, it’s very rare. But that’s only one part of it. There are all sorts of, I would say, loopholes that have been exploited within the pesticide law,” he said.

As reported by Mother Jones, the EPA spent more than a decade reviewing Roundup before clearing the herbicide in 2020 under the federal standard that its agricultural benefits outweighed its societal harms — only for that assessment to be swiftly challenged in court by environmental groups. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the EPA’s assessment in 2022, finding serious “errors in assessing human-­health risk.” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin told Congress last Tuesday that a new ruling on the herbicide is coming by the year’s end. 

At that same hearing, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat in New York, cited internal EPA emails that noted Bayer promised to “provide a small thanks” to Zeldin for the agency updating its webpage on glyphosate after an appeals court struck down a California label warning against the chemical’s cancer risk. The emails, according to Ocasio-Cortez, also show that the company “wanted to thank you and your agency for removing support for California’s warning because their case before the Supreme Court right now hinges on you not warning the American people and withdrawing your support on glyphosate.” 

“Do you understand the conflict of interest that is before the American people right now, Mr. Secretary?” Ocasio-Cortez asked the EPA administrator. According to transcripts of the hearing, Zeldin did not explicitly respond.

The Durnell case has become a national flashpoint for environmentalists, public health advocates, and Trump voters who consider themselves a part of the Make America Healthy Again movement. Some of that friction can be traced back to last year, when the administration urged the Supreme Court to take up Bayer’s case. Then, in February, the president issued an executive order deeming glyphosate-based herbicides key to national security and calling for more domestic production of the chemical, which was met with serious backlash within the MAHA coalition. Trump’s administration also sent a lawyer to argue last Monday on behalf of the chemical company. 

As justices heard oral arguments, a crowd of protesters gathered outside of the Supreme Court for what they called “The People vs. Poison” rally. At the same time, members of the U.S. House of Representatives debated provisions of the farm bill that would have blocked states from passing pesticide label requirements that differ from federal labels. Those provisions were stripped in a House amendment vote last Thursday, and the Senate is expected to vote in the coming weeks on the farm bill.

Kelly Ryerson, the prominent MAHA activist and founder of the website Glyphosate Facts who helped organize “The People vs. Poison” rally, said the Durnell case amounts to a litmus test for whether the administration is truly serious about the MAHA agenda. 

A ruling that strips people’s ability to file state-level failure-to-warn claims would be “catastrophic for public health,” said Ryerson. “It would be entirely because of this administration, and it will be unforgivable.” The Supreme Court is expected to render its decision this summer, giving voters just months to reckon with the ruling before heading to the midterm polls. 

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The Supreme Court is deciding whether Roundup, America’s most-used herbicide, needs a cancer warning on May 4, 2026.

The new data center proposed for a quiet city about 115 miles east of San Diego came across people’s radars in different ways.

For patrons of the deli on West Aten Road, it was the white “Not In My Backyard” signs jutting out of lawns.  

For local irrigation district workers, it was something called an “electric service application.” 

For Margie Padilla, it was a rant on Facebook.

The 43-year-old mom came across a post online while she had a few minutes to scan social media last spring after a day spent tending her garden and taking care of her two boys.

“Somebody was complaining about this center,” Padilla said. “I was like, ‘Whoa, what’s going on here?’” 

What’s going on is the second-largest new data center being considered statewide, which would be less than half a mile from Padilla’s stucco home in the center of Imperial Valley. If finished by 2028, as the developer expects, the at least 950,000-square-foot, two-story data center could be the largest operating statewide, taking up 17 football fields’ worth of land. 

The roughly $10 billion, 330-megawatt data center would require 750,000 gallons of water a day to operate, said developer Sebastian Rucci, who insists electricity and water costs won’t rise due to the data center. 

The proposed 330-megawatt data center in Imperial, Calif., is slated to take up 17 football fields of land and needs 750,000 gallons of water a day. Courtesy of Sebastian Rucci

“We have studies on the air. We have studies on the water. The electricity could be handled,” Rucci said. “We did our homework.” 

Imperial officials haven’t quelled local concerns, only noting that the project is facing litigation and that the center’s long-term impacts on utilities haven’t been determined. 

On top of the financial burden of maintaining her family’s health, gas and grocery expenses strain Padilla’s budget, and she’s worried a new data center will only increase water and power costs. Padilla, who first heard of the data center a year ago, has only grown more concerned, and she’s not alone. 

Some residents would see it from their backyards.

“I can only imagine the rates going up once that data center is up and running,” she said, shading her eyes from the beaming sun.

This is one of two dozen data centers expected to open in California in the next few years.

Growing concern and regulatory gaps

A majority of respondents to a nationwide poll by the US Water Alliance’s Value of Water campaign share Padilla’s worries, with 54 percent extremely or very concerned about the effect data centers will have on water quality, water supply, and costs in their area. 

In its first question about data centers since the poll began in 2016, two-thirds of voters said it was important for their state to have a plan for the effects of data centers on water in the coming years.

“I suspect that as data centers continue to be part of the broad conversation, then these numbers will probably continue to go up as people are more concerned about the impacts they have on the things that affect them and their communities, like supply, quality and cost,” said Scott Berry, the senior advisor on policy and external affairs at the US Water Alliance, from Water Week in Washington D.C. this month.

More than 90 percent of data centers in the U.S. get most of the water they need for cooling from municipal systems, estimated Shaolei Ren, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of California, Riverside. 

During the hottest summer days, a large 100-megawatt facility can use about 1 million gallons of water for evaporative cooling. That amount is the same as about 10,000 people’s daily water use at home, Ren said. 

But those centers require “zero water for many days of the year when it’s cool outside,” he said.

Some data centers are exploring alternatives like treated wastewater or graywater for cooling instead of drinkable water, providing residents and officials with options that could reduce strain on local water supplies.

California doesn’t require AI data centers to report water usage, and the state’s Water Resources Control Board does not maintain a specific list of water rights held by data centers. Although residents are working to require more transparency about water use from data centers, recent efforts to require the facilities’ owners to report how much water they use to the state have faltered.

On top of the data center boom in California, the hundreds of water districts, a deepening Southwestern megadrought and the diminishing of the Colorado River increasingly complicate water issues. 

Also, while data centers can take as little as two to three years to build, developing new water sources can take as long as 20 years, said Ren.

Plans for the steep increase in water demand from California data centers inevitably focus on infrastructure, experts said.

“Water is not purely an environmental issue,” Ren noted. “In many places, it is fundamentally an infrastructure challenge.”

Across the country, water infrastructure upgrades are estimated to cost between $10 billion to $58 billion, Ren’s research team found. How many more facilities are built and where will be a big factor in future infrastructure costs.

The site of the proposed data center in Imperial, California. Steven Rodas / Inside Climate News

The amount of electricity a data center uses, to some degree, determines how much heat it produces, and consequently how much cooling it requires and, in turn, how much water it needs.

The Imperial County data center is one of 24 planned for completion across California by 2030, according to the latest information gathered by analysts at Cleanview, a market intelligence platform. 

Based on the about 1.7 GW of electricity the proposed data centers would use, with at least two projects for which there aren’t energy consumption figures, water infrastructure upgrade costs just for the demands of the centers in the state could run from about $200 million to $800 million, Ren said.

“This number assumes that California data centers’ water use intensity is the same as the national average,” he explained.

There is no central permitting authority for data centers in California, and most are overseen by city and county governments, according to the California Public Utilities Commission. Data Center Map shows 286 of the facilities currently operating in California.

While California’s size and tech focus lead some to expect many more data centers here, the cost and availability of power and land, as well as the general tax and regulatory climate, have been hurdles to building them out, according to the Data Center Coalition, which represents big corporations like Amazon, Meta, Google, and Microsoft.

Read Next Texas is giving data centers more than $1 billion in tax breaks each year Paul Cobler, The Texas Tribune

Nonetheless, California trails only Virginia and Texas in the number of individual data center locations, but its centers have much lower total new electricity capacity, which may also indicate lower water demand.

A research team at the University of California, Riverside, recently found that data centers could collectively require 697 to 1,451 million gallons per day (MGD) of new water capacity nationally through 2030. New York City’s average daily supply is about 1,000 MGD.

Currently, data centers are estimated to use about 39 billion gallons of water nationally each year, Khara Boender, the senior manager for state policy at the Data Center Coalition, said, citing market research from Bluefield. 

“I know when we start to talk about billions of gallons of water in a year, that sounds absolutely crazy,” Boender said. “Looking at how that falls into context with some of these other large water users, I think that that kind of contextualization could be surprising to folks.”

Alfalfa irrigation in California’s Imperial Valley alone uses more than 800 billion gallons a year, an April essay in Outside highlighted. The beverage industry uses 533 billion gallons of water a year, and the semiconductor industry uses 59 billion gallons, Boender noted.

But spikes in water needs for data centers can lead to bottlenecks in small community water systems, Ren, at the University of California, Riverside, noted. “Only comparing the annual totals can obscure the real water challenge,” he said.

There is no single fix for the pressure data centers are placing on water supplies across the state, which will be different depending on the location and water systems where each facility is built, said Shivaji Deshmukh, the general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California — the largest supplier of treated water in the U.S. The district serves 19 million people in six California counties.

“Every community — even within our service area — is different in terms of costs, what type of supply they have. Some regions have access to groundwater. Some have access to treated wastewater or recycled water somewhere along the coast,” Deshmukh said.

So industries, most of which require water for cooling, will look to satisfy that thirst from different sources, depending on their location. 

“Imperial Irrigation District is one where I know they’re discussing … installation of data centers in their area,” Deshmukh said.

The Imperial dilemma

The plot of dirt on West Aton Road betrays nothing of the colossal data center that could one day sit on the land. Owner Sebastian Rucci hopes to have the facility up and running by the summer of 2028, he said.

Rucci, who is also a lawyer, has purchased 235 acres for his data center so far. He says the data center will allow Google to train its Gemini artificial intelligence, although Google denies any involvement “in a data center project in Imperial County.”

Before he can begin building on the site, a judge will weigh in on the city of Imperial’s lawsuit against the project, which demands that it clear higher environmental hurdles, including the California Environmental Quality Act — which often draws ire from developers who claim it can needlessly stall proposals. The local water district also has to complete its review of the project.

Rucci is determined, though, citing a series of studies conducted by survey and consulting groups, and by the district itself, which manages water and provides power. He posted those reports online to show the data center made sense — in part because water and power could be effectively provided to the data center, and the land was permitted for industrial use. 

Margie Padilla tours her garden on April 16, where she holds a carrot that she thinks hasn’t grown well due to drier temperatures in the Imperial Valley. Steven Rodas / Inside Climate News

The debate between supporters and opponents of the facility has escalated, with the next court date set for the end of April.

With that date in mind, Padilla, the Imperial mother, set out to work in her garden on a balmy Thursday morning. 

Donning a green, short-sleeved shirt and flip-flops, she checked on her squash, poked at her cherry tomatoes, and dug in her spade to move periwinkle to a better spot for watering. And through it all, she wondered what the thirst of the proposed data center would do to her garden. And her monthly water bill.

Her payment for water, sewer, and trash services currently ranges from $90 to $130 a month — more than double what she paid six years ago. 

“I’m also afraid they’re going to put [water] restrictions for us, for the residents,” said Padilla, who estimates her family of four uses about 300 gallons of water a day. “That’s going to be harsh on me, particularly, because of my garden. I grow my own food, my own vegetables.” 

Worries over power and water price surges are misguided, Rucci said. He has been considering power and water needs for the 18 months he has worked on the project, he said, and outlined how it would bring various economic benefits to the region, including about 100 permanent jobs post-construction. 

Read Next Data centers are straining the grid. Can they be forced to pay for it? Naveena Sadasivam

Still, Padilla is thinking about other things. She says her two sons were anemic when they were younger, requiring them to eat fresh produce to supplement the iron their bodies needed. Even after treating the condition, the Imperial mom keeps her sons’ diet filled with veggies and fruits. She needs her garden for that.

The Imperial Irrigation District declined to be interviewed for this story but, in a written statement, noted that it has yet to receive a formal request for water for the project.

The District, which provides water and power to all of Imperial County as well as parts of Riverside and San Diego counties, did not have specific estimates of how demand from the data center could impact its costs.

“Water was very concerning to us from the beginning,” Rucci said.

He’s spoken with city officials in Imperial and El Centro to arrange a water deal for the facility, he said, and proposed getting 6 million gallons per day of reclaimed water from both cities.

“Our plan was we would do all the municipal upgrades at our cost, and then we would take the excess water and run it clean to the Salton Sea,” he said. 

Those conversations have not paid off, although Rucci said he remains hopeful municipal officials will help him get water for his facility. 

“We first tried to do reclaimed water. I still prefer that, but that seems to be taking months, and I don’t know if that … will happen,” Rucci said. “Probably we’ll just get it from the [Imperial Irrigation District]” by purchasing it for industrial use.

How the center obtains its water may change as its plans are updated, he added. 

Through it all, he remains confident the data center will be built in Imperial County and be good for the area.

Carolina Paez disagrees.

The 46-year-old mother’s backyard abuts the data center site. She says she’d be able to hit it with a rock from her property. 

Both she and her son have asthma, and she’s worried about the construction dust, potential pollution, and noise from the data center. And higher bills.

“I’m not just thinking about the expenses that are going to increase, but also about the things that are going to lose value — for instance, my house,” Paez said in Spanish.

“What am I going to do with this property? Who would even want to live here?”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline California will soon have more than 300 data centers. Where will they get their water? on May 3, 2026.

The future of the global shipping industry – and its 3% share of global emissions – will be decided in three weeks of talks in the third quarter of this year, after a decision taken in London on Friday.

At the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) headquarters this week, governments largely failed to substantively negotiate a controversial set of measures to penalise polluting ships and reward vessels running on clean fuels known as the Net-Zero Framework. The green shipping plan has been aggressively opposed by fossil fuel-producing nations, in particular by the US and Saudi Arabia.

This week, countries  delivered statements outlining their views on the measures in a session that ran from Wednesday into Thursday. Then, late on Friday afternoon, they discussed when to negotiate these measures and what proposals they should discuss.

After a lengthy debate, which the talks’ chair Harry Conway joked was confusing, governments agreed to hold a week of behind-closed-door talks from 1 September to 4 September and from 23 November to 27 November.

Following these meetings, which are intended to negotiate disagreements on the NZF and rival watered-down measures proposed by the US and its allies, there will be public talks from November 30 to December 4.

• Oct 17, 2025 Politics US-led alliance wins a year’s delay in adoption of green shipping deal The IMO’s Net-Zero Framework will be up for approval again in October 2026, after the US and Saudi Arabia persuaded countries not to vote on it as planned Read more
• Apr 23, 2026 Energy Prospects for global green shipping deal boosted by US tariff ruling, analysts say While divisions remain over the international shipping’s Net Zero Framework, the US’s main threat may now have been partly neutered Read more
• Jan 23, 2026 Politics IMO head: Shipping decarbonisation “has started” despite green deal delay Arsenio Dominguez said the shipping industry’s net zero emissions goal is not in dispute although countries have stalled on adopting a framework to reach it Read more

Last October, talks intended to adopt the NZF provisionally agreed in April 2025 were derailed by the US and Saudi Arabia, who successfully persuaded a majority of countries to vote to postpone the talks by a year. 

Those talks, known as an extraordinary session, are now scheduled to resume on Friday December 4 unless governments decide otherwise in the preceding weeks. While this Friday session will be in the same building with the same participants as the rest of the week’s talks, calling it the extraordinary session is significant as it means the NZF can be voted on.

Em Fenton, senior director of climate diplomacy at Opportunity Green said that the NZF “has survived but survival is not a victory” and called for it to be adopted later this year “in a way that maintains urgency and ambition, and delivers justice and equity for countries on the frontlines of climate impacts”.

NZF’s supporters

The NZF would penalise the owners of particularly polluting ships and use the revenues to fund cleaner fuels, support affected workers and help developing countries manage the transition.

Many governments – particularly in Europe, the Pacific and some Latin American and African nations – spoke in favour of it this week.

South Africa said the fund it would create is “the key enabler of a just transition” and its removal would take away predictable revenues from African countries. Vanuatu said that “we are not here to sink the ship but to man it”.

Australia’s representative called it a “carefully balanced compromise”, as it was provisionally agreed by a large majority after years of negotiations, and warned that failing to adopt it would harm the shipping industry by failing to provide certainty.

Santa Marta summit kick-starts work on key steps for fossil fuel transition

Canada’s negotiator said that if it was weakened to appease its critics like the US and Saudi Arabia, this would disappoint those who think it is too weak already like the Pacific islands.

A large group of mainly big developing countries like Nigeria and Indonesia did not rule out supporting the framework but called for adjustments to help developing countries deal with the changes. Nigeria called for developing countries to be given more time to implement the measures, a minimum share of the fund’s revenues and discounts for ships bringing them food and energy.

According to analysis from the University of College London’s Energy Institute, the countries speaking in support of the NZF include five countries which voted with the US to postpone talks in October and a further ten countries which did not take a clear position at that time. Most governments support the NZF as the basis for further talks, the institute said.

Opposition remains

But a small group of mainly oil-producing nations said they are opposed to any financial penalties for particularly polluting ships.

They support a proposal submitted by Liberia, Argentina and Panama which has proposed weakening emission targets and ditching any funding mechanism for the framework involving “direct revenue collection and disbursement”.

Argentina argued that the NZF would harm countries which are far from their export markets and said concerns over that cannot be solved “by magic with guidelines”. They added that, as a result, the NZF itself needs to be fundamentally re-negotiated.

The UCL Energy Institute said that just 24 countries – less than a quarter of those who spoke – said they supported Argentina’s proposal.

Despite this, the US State Department issued a statement saying that the decision to hold more talks incorporating alternative proposals signalled “a total collapse in support for the original NZF proposal”.

While this week’s talks did not see the kind of US threats reported in October, their delegation did leave personalised flyers on every delegate’s desk which were described by academics, negotiators and climate campaigners as misleading.

One witness told Climate Home News that junior US delegates arrived early on Wednesday and placed flyers behind governments’ name plates warning each country of the costs they would incur if the NZF is adopted.

The figures on a selection of leaflets seen by Climate Home News ranged from $100 million for Panama to $3.5 billion for the Netherlands. “They are trying to scare countries away from supporting climate action with one-sided information”, one negotiator told Climate Home News. 

A flyer left on Pakistan’s desk, shared by a witness with Climate Home News

They added that the calculations, by the US State Department’s Office of the Chief Economist, ignore the fact that the money raised would be shared to help poorer countries’ transition as well as ignoring the economic costs of failing to address climate change.

Tristan Smith, an academic representing the Institute of Marine Engineering, Science and Technology, told the meeting that the calculations were “opaque” and flawed as they overstate the contribution of fuel cost to trade costs.

A US State Department Spokesperson said in a statement that they “firmly stand behind our estimates” which were shared “in good faith” and to “provide an additional tool to policymakers as they contemplate the true economic burden over the NZF”.

This article was updated on 5/5/2026 to include the US State Department’s statement

The post Key green shipping talks to be held in late 2026 appeared first on Climate Home News.

African leaders have intensified calls for governments to stop exporting raw minerals and step up efforts to align their policies, share infrastructure and coordinate investment to add value to their resources and bring economic prosperity to the continent.

In a speech to the inaugural Kenya Mining Investment Conference & Expo in Nairobi this week, Kenyan President William Ruto became the latest African leader to confirm the country will end exports of raw mineral ore. The East African nation has deposits of gold, iron ore and copper and recently launched a tender for global investors to develop a deposit of rare earths, which are used in EV motors and wind turbines, valued at $62 billion.

Kenya is among more than a dozen African nations that have either banned or imposed export curbs on their mineral resources as they seek to process minerals domestically to boost revenues, create jobs and capture a slice of the industries that are producing high-value clean tech for the energy transition.

• Mar 11, 2026 Clean Energy Frontier Africa needs more than export bans to cash in on critical minerals, experts say Restricting raw materials exports is well-intentioned but without other policies to foster domestic processing, they can backfire Read more
• Mar 6, 2026 Clean Energy Frontier South African rare earths project aims to rival Chinese with low-cost model The EU-backed Zandkopsdrift project plans to offset the high cost of rare earths production with another mineral in hot demand for use in batteries Read more
• Feb 3, 2026 Clean Energy Frontier West Africa’s first lithium mine awaits go-ahead as Ghana seeks better deal  Ghana wants to benefit from the scramble for lithium but its reliance on mining firms for revenue and expertise weakens its ability to negotiate preferential terms, experts say Read more

“For too long we have extracted and exported raw materials at the bottom of the value chain, while others have processed, refined, manufactured and captured the greater share of economic value,” Ruto told African ministers and stakeholders gathered at the mining investment conference in Nairobi.

As a result, Africa currently captures less than 1% of the value generated from global clean energy technologies, he said. To address this, Kenya, in collaboration with other African nations, “will process our minerals here in the continent, we will refine them here and we will manufacture them here”, he added.

Mineral export restrictions on the rise

Africa is a major supplier of minerals needed for the global energy transition. The continent holds an estimated 30% of the world’s critical mineral reserves, including lithium, cobalt and copper. The Democratic Republic of Congo produces roughly 70% of global cobalt, a key ingredient in lithium-ion batteries, while countries such as Guinea dominate bauxite production, and Mozambique and Tanzania hold significant graphite deposits.

But African governments have struggled to attract the investment needed to turn their vast mineral wealth into a green industrial powerhouse. Recently Burundi, Malawi, Nigeria and Zimbabwe are among those that have resorted to banning the export of unrefined minerals to incentivise foreign companies to invest in value addition locally.

Outdated geological data limits Africa’s push to benefit from its mineral wealth

This week, Zimbabwe exported its first shipments of lithium sulphate, an intermediate form of processed lithium that can be further refined into battery-grade material, from a mine and processing plant operated by Chinese company Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt.

After freezing all exports of lithium concentrate – the first stage of processing – earlier this year, the government introduced export quotas and will ban all exports from January 2027.

Export restrictions on critical raw materials have grown more than five-fold since 2009, found a report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) published this week. In 2024, a more diverse group of countries, including many resource-rich developing economies in Africa and Asia, introduced restrictions, including Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Angola.

Artisanal miners look for copper in mining waste Artisanal miners look for copper in mining waste

This is “a structural shift in the wrong direction,” Mathias Cormann, the OECD’s secretary-general, told the organisation’s Critical Minerals Forum in Istanbul, Turkey, this week.

“We understand the motivations: building local industries, managing environmental impacts, capturing greater value domestically. But our research is quite clear. Export restrictions distort investment, reduce volumes and undermine supply security often while delivering limited gains in value added,” he said.

In-country barriers to success

Thomas Scurfield, Africa senior economic analyst at the Natural Resource Governance Institute, told Climate Home News that export restrictions “can look like a promising route to local value addition” for cash-strapped African mineral producers but have “rarely worked” unless countries already have reliable energy, infrastructure and competitive costs for processing.

“Without those conditions, bans may simply push companies to scale back mining rather than scale up processing,” he said.

Alaka Lugonzo, partnerships lead for Africa at Global Witness, said plentiful and stable energy supplies are vital, adding that while Kenya has relatively robust road networks, they are insufficient for industrial-scale operations.

“Meaningful value addition and real industrialisation requires heavy machinery… and you will need better infrastructure,” she said, highlighting persistent last-mile challenges in mining regions where “there’s no railway, there’s no electricity, there’s no water”.

Export capacity is another concern, she noted, particularly whether existing port systems could handle increased volumes of processed minerals.

Regional approach recommended

Scurfield said that through regional cooperation – including pooling supplies, specialising across different stages of refining and manufacturing, and building larger regional markets – “African countries could overcome many domestic constraints that make going alone difficult”.

That’s what close to 20 African governments are working to deliver as part of the Africa Minerals Strategy Group, which was set up by African ministers and is dedicated to foster cooperation among African nations to build mineral value chains and better benefit from the energy transition.

Africa urged to unite on minerals as US strikes bilateral deals

Nigerian Minister of Solid Minerals Dele Alake, who chairs the group, said “true collaboration” between countries, including aligning mining policies, sharing infrastructure, coordinating investment strategies and promoting trade across the continent, will create the conditions for long-term investments that could turn Africa into “a formidable and competitive force within the global mineral supply chain”.

“The time has come for Africa to redefine its place within the global mineral economy and that transformation must begin with regional integration and regional cooperation,” he told the mining investment conference in Nairobi.

Lugonzo of Global Witness agreed, saying that value-addition would benefit from adopting a continental perspective. “Why should Kenya build another smelter when we can export our gold to Tanzania for smelting, and then we use the pipeline through Uganda to take it to the port and we export it?” she asked.

To facilitate that, there is a need to operationalise the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), she added. “That agreement is the only way Africa is going to move from point A to point B.”

The post Kenya seeks regional coordination to build African mineral value chains appeared first on Climate Home News.

Türkiye’s COP31 presidency has struck a “strategic” partnership with the International Energy Agency (IEA), aiming to speed up the global clean energy transition amid “the biggest energy crisis in history” triggered by the Iran war.

The Paris-based watchdog will work with the host nation of this year’s UN climate summit on areas including energy supply and security, electrification and green industrialisation, Murat Kurum, Türkiye’s climate minister, said at a high-level summit hosted by the IEA on Thursday.

“We all have to act together and make sure that we transform the crisis into an opportunity,” the COP31 president said, adding that the “most critical step” is to accelerate the transition to clean energy.

The IEA’s executive director, Fatih Birol, said the agency is closely watching how governments are reacting to what he described as “the biggest energy crisis in history” and whether those national responses will push climate-heating emissions up or down.

The Paris gathering came hot on the heels of the first global conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels in Colombia, where many governments pointed to fossil fuel volatility as a risk for energy security and economic growth, and used it as an argument to move away from oil and gas towards renewables.

Clean cooking and waste emissions in focus

Though details of how the partnership will operate in practice remain limited, Kurum said one of its most important pillars will be finding solutions to expand clean cooking in developing countries, which the COP31 president promised to bring “to the centre of the global agenda”.

The IEA has been leading global discussions on helping the 2.3 billion people across the world – mainly in the Global South – using highly-polluting fuels like charcoal, firewood and waste switch to cleaner and more efficient cooking solutions to reduce emissions and damaging health impacts.

• Apr 30, 2026 News Santa Marta summit kick-starts work on key steps for fossil fuel transition The conference offers some 60 nations help to develop roadmaps to shift their economies away from coal, oil and gas, and make international trade green Read more
• Apr 29, 2026 Comment Six nations at Santa Marta could shape fossil fuel futures A small but critical handful of countries attending the conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels remain deeply committed to expanding their output Read more

The agency is organising a summit to improve clean cooking access for Africans this July, alongside the Kenyan, US and Norwegian governments. Clean cooking solutions set to be promoted include fossil gas, alongside electric and solar-powered stoves.

Kurum also added that the IEA will carry out special research on the impact of waste recycling on climate change, which will inform the COP31 presidency’s agenda on cutting emissions from garbage, one of Türkiye’s priorities which is spearheaded by the president’s wife.

COP28 chief missing

The IEA convened representatives from over 50 governments, together with business leaders, on Thursday for the first in a series of dialogues aimed at advancing energy discussions ahead of the UN climate summit in November, where Australia will lead the negotiations.

They were joined by previous COP presidents, including veteran French diplomat Laurent Fabius, one of the key architects of the Paris Agreement, and Britain’s COP26 chief, Alok Sharma.

Sultan Al Jaber, the UAE’s COP28 president, was “very sorry” for not being able to join the meeting, Birol said. As the UAE announced its exit from the OPEC oil cartel this week, Al Jaber, who heads up the Emirati oil company Adnoc, said the firm’s ambition was “to deliver more…across oil, gas, chemicals, and low carbon and renewable energy”.

‘Bleaker’ outlook

Sharma said the current trajectory of global greenhouse gas emissions is “much bleaker” than what it looked like when he presided over negotiations in Glasgow in 2021.

At that time, the IEA calculated that if all new commitments made at the summit were met, global warming could be limited to 1.8C above pre-industrialised levels, offering an optimistic outlook. Today, the UN says the world has already failed to hold warming to 1.5C and is on course for a rise of 2.6-3.1C.

Santa Marta marks a new chapter in climate diplomacy

Sharma said he didn’t “want to be the skunk at the party”, but pointed out that little money is yet flowing to decarbonise hard-to-abate industries and to support clean energy development anywhere outside China, Europe and the US. “If you want to transition away from fossil fuels, you need to provide the finance,” he added.

New finance mechanism promised

Echoing his remarks, COP21 president Fabius said “not easy” subjects like finance will need to be tackled at this year’s climate summit if countries want to make progress on putting into practice what’s been agreed at previous talks.

“Without financial, concrete steps there’s no implementation and it’s all talk,” he added.

COP31’s Kurum promised the presidency would “follow up” on the UN climate finance goal negotiated at COP29, when rich countries agreed to provide at least $300 billion annually by 2035 to developing nations to help them lower emissions and adapt to a warming world.

“We are working on a new mechanism to match the right projects with the right financing and make access to financing as easy as possible,” Kurum said.

The post Türkiye’s COP31 presidency and IEA join forces on clean energy push appeared first on Climate Home News.

As oil prices spike due to the Iran war, a new diplomatic process launched in Colombia will support a group of around 60 countries – among them large fossil-fuel producers – interested in designing national roadmaps and a new financial architecture to wean their economies off coal, oil and gas, as well as building a trade system that favours clean energy.

The first global conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels wrapped up on Wednesday in the coal-port city of Santa Marta after several days of discussions bringing together ministers, academics, Indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples, green groups, trade unions and business representatives.

It offered a space for governments frustrated by last year’s failed attempt at COP30 to develop a global roadmap away from fossil fuels to make progress on how to reduce their reliance on hydrocarbons in a fair and carefully planned way, in line with a commitment made at COP28 in Dubai. Large fossil fuel-producing countries have since blocked concrete advances at the UN talks on putting that into practice.

The Santa Marta outcomes will feed into a voluntary roadmap being crafted by COP30 hosts Brazil based on inputs from countries and civil society.

Santa Marta: Ministers grapple with practicalities of fossil fuel phase-out

At Wednesday’s closing plenary, Colombian environment minister Irene Vélez Torres announced that a second conference will be held early next year in the Pacific island nation of Tuvalu, co-chaired by Ireland, marking the start of a new policy-making process to run alongside the slower-paced climate COPs.

“For the first time, it demonstrates that it is possible to make a different type of environmental democracy,” Vélez Torres said, adding that improvements can be made to the methodology.

Colombia and the Netherlands, which jointly hosted the Santa Marta conference, said three workstreams had been set up to identify concrete ways to reduce fossil fuel dependence and strengthen co-operation between the 59 countries that attended, along with the European Union.

These workstreams are focused on designing national and regional roadmaps away from fossil fuels including coordinating support for implementation; reforming economic and financial architecture by reducing fossil fuel subsidies, unlocking investment and managing debt constraints; and connecting fossil fuel-producing and consuming nations to reshape the international trade system towards decarbonisation and green commerce.

A summary report of the conference said governments would receive policy support from a new panel of top scientists specialised in the energy transition, which will help countries develop roadmaps and align them with their national climate action plans (NDCs).

During two days of ministerial meetings, France was the first country to announce its own roadmap, which includes targets to end the consumption of coal by 2030, oil by 2045 and fossil gas by 2050 for energy purposes.

Dutch climate minister Stientje van Veldhoven said that, while “nobody is gonna force” governments to implement the anticipated roadmaps, “these countries came together because they want to transition to a different economy”, adding that the conference provides “safe space for dialogue”.

“The fact that we don’t have negotiations here gave us such different dynamics, so the psychology of the Santa Marta conference is something that we will definitely make sure to carry forward,” she told the plenary. Later she said at a press conference that the key was not to negotiate but to “collaborate”.

Call for a fossil fuel treaty

Countries gave mostly positive reactions to the conference proceedings and said the general mood had been uplifting. One government delegate from the Dominican Republic even had to fight back tears in the plenary as she thanked the hosts for inspiring the group of assembled countries.

While supportive of the Santa Marta discussions, oil-rich Nigeria advocated strongly for a “managed, just, orderly and equitable” transition away from fossil fuels, warning against any “sudden closures”. This stance was reflected in the summary report which notes that fossil fuels should “decline in a managed, fair, and politically viable way”.

• Apr 25, 2026 Energy Climate scientists call for fossil fuel transition roadmaps A set of scientific policy recommendations and a new expert panel launched in Santa Marta will help governments plot a path away from oil, gas and coal Read more
• Apr 24, 2026 Comment Why the transition beyond fossil fuels depends on cities and collective action Cities will help identify concrete pathways for an equitable shift to clean energy at the Santa Marta conference, with C40 members aiming to halve their fossil fuel use by 2030 Read more

Ghana, another fossil fuel-producing country, said oil and gas remain deeply tied to government revenues which fund public services. Nonetheless, the West African country urged others to join an initiative to negotiate a global “Fossil Fuel Treaty”, which a group of 18 nations called on the conference to endorse. The effort was not included in the Santa Marta workstreams.

Felix Wertli, Switzerland’s ambassador for the environment, said countries had found potential areas for collaboration around improving electricity grids, energy storage and green investments ahead of this year’s COP31 UN climate summit in Türkiye. “We are confident that this COP could support such a call,” he added.

“Groundbreaking” talks

Delegates said Santa Marta had offered a “more relaxed” and inclusive process than UN negotiations. Government officials met face-to-face in hours-long conversations and interacted with representatives of different social sectors, including Indigenous peoples, cities and academics in closed-door breakout sessions.

Panama’s climate envoy, Juan Carlos Monterrey, told Climate Home News that, while he had been sceptical of the process at first, it allowed for discussions to “flow” in a way that COPs do not. “That is groundbreaking – it is a massive change in how we deal with environmental diplomacy,” he said.

EU climate chief Wopke Hoekstra told journalists that the fact that the conference had happened at all just a few months after a tense COP30 was an achievement in itself. UK climate envoy Rachel Kyte also noted that the Santa Marta dialogue “is a proof of point that we can talk maturely about a really difficult issue”.

Comment: Santa Marta marks a new chapter in climate diplomacy

Observers also largely praised the conference. Catherine Abreu, director of the International Climate Politics Hub, called it a “productive space” for discussing the “stickiest issues” in the energy transition. WWF’s Manuel Pulgar Vidal, also a former COP president for Peru, said Santa Marta made “hope swell into momentum”, adding that its urgency must be sustained beyond this one summit.

Patricia Suárez, from the Organization of Indigenous Peoples of the Colombian Amazon (OPIAC), said Indigenous peoples were optimistic that the conference had placed “the urgency of moving away from fossil fuels on the table”. But more concrete measures must follow, she noted, including declaring key rainforest ecosystems as “fossil fuel exclusion zones”.

One area the conference was criticised for overlooking was the health harms caused by fossil fuels through air pollution, extreme heat and other impacts. Jeni Miller, executive director of the Global Climate and Health Alliance, which unites 250 health organisations, said leaders in Santa Marta “did not address the importance of protecting people’s health”, which should be put at the centre of the conversation.

Influencing UN negotiations

Most government officials at the conference recognised the need to grow the “coalition of the willing” cemented in Santa Marta into a larger network that can influence other spaces such as UN climate negotiations – and its organisers reiterated that the door is open for others countries to join.

Dutch minister van Veldhoven told the final plenary that while “we are here with an immense group in Santa Marta, it is still too small” to fully disentangle the world from fossil fuels. Colombia and the Netherlands did not invite some powerful fossil fuel-producing countries like Russia and the US to the gathering because of their “openly extractivist” views, and major players in the clean energy sector like China were also left off the list.

Comment: Six nations at Santa Marta could shape fossil fuel futures

Tuvalu’s climate minister, Maina Vakafua Talia, told Climate Home News that big actors like China should be at the table, saying the criteria for invitations could change for the second fossil fuel phase-out conference his country will organise in April 2027.

“If we are missing out the main players in the discussion, then we are moving in a loop,” he said. “We need to find somehow how we can engage with [them] because there is no point in talking to ourselves.”

Claudio Angelo, head of international politics at Brazilian NGO Observatório do Clima, said countries could decide to keep the ball rolling within the UN climate negotiations by presenting formal agenda items on roadmaps away from fossil fuels at the annual Bonn talks in June which set the scene for COPs.

Tina Stege, climate envoy from the Marshall Islands, argued “there is a strong recognition that what we’re doing here can complement the COP process and needs to inform that process” – a view backed by other Pacific islands.

This story was updated after publication to clarify the final number of countries that attended the Santa Marta conference.

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