G1. Progressive Green

Media Advisory

For Immediate Release

The Bonn Setback or Bonn Fast track?

Unpacking what it takes to advance climate justice at Bonn 

Bonn, Germany— The climate crisis is often described as a crisis of emissions but it is also far more. With week one of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change intersessional negotiations (SB64) in Bonn, Germany underway, governments are now getting deeper into the nuances of negotiations on critical topics such as just transition, climate finance, adaptation, carbon markets and more. 

SB64 convenes at a moment when it is impossible to ignore the US-Israel led imperialist wars and genocide  happening outside the halls of the UNFCCC and its impact around the world. Communities are not only confronting escalating climate impacts but also abuses of militarisation, debt crises, economic instability, shrinking civic space, rising authoritarianism and the continued concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a small number of states, corporations and financial actors. In this context climate negotiations are not politically neutral spaces but are shaped by the same neo-colonial, imperial, fossil fuel driven economic system  and the global inequalities that produced the climate crisis. Every major issue on the agenda for SB64– from  climate finance and adaptation to just transition,  mitigation and false solutions– reflects a broader struggle over rights, responsibility and the future of multilateralism.

Climate justice will not be delivered– at the UNFCCC or anywhere– through tiny tweaks to an unjust and failing global system. Real action requires the Global North to stop being the primary blockers of progress and instead get serious about delivering on its historical responsibility to do its fair share, protecting human rights and pay its long overdue climate debt. It requires transforming the structures that created the crisis and building pathways rooted in justice and equity to deliver on collective survival, dignity and liberation. The Bonn climate talks can either help deliver a setback or a fast track to climate justice. 

Join members of the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice (DCJ) as the Bonn climate talks kick off to hear more about what governments must deliver here in Bonn.

WHEN: Wednesday 10 June 2026, 11-11.30 CEST (UTC + 2) 

WHERE: Nairobi 4, Main building, Inside the World Conference Center and webcast here

WITH: 

• Meena Raman, Third World Network
• Leon Sealey-Huggins, War on Want
• Thomas Joseph Tsewenaldin, Indigenous Environmental Network
• Aleijn Reintegrado,  Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development
• Moderated by Rachitaa Gupta, Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice

CONTACT: dcj.comms@demandclimatejustice.org 

For more detail on DCJ’s demands across all topics on the agenda for Bonn, read  DCJ’s SB64 Position Paper– Advancing Climate Justice in an Age of Climate Crisis

The post Media Advisory: The Bonn Setback or Bonn Fast track? appeared first on Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice.

A fundraising campaign launched by the Bellona Foundation has succeeded in securing the organization’s future and averting bankruptcy.

“I would like to express my deepest gratitude for the support we have received, on behalf of everyone at Bellona,” said Bellona founder Frederic Hauge.

On June 1, Bellona announced that it faced the prospect of bankruptcy unless it could raise at least NOK 8 million within one week. The crisis was triggered by the loss and postponement of key sources of funding, leaving the organization in an acute liquidity crunch. After a week-long fundraising effort, the final total reached an impressive NOK 13 million.

“We received NOK 3 million from 4,370 individual donors. That provided a crucial foundation for businesses, entrepreneurs, and major supporters to contribute an additional NOK 10 million,” said Bellona CEO Sveinung Rotevatn. “Together, these contributions ensure that we can continue our operations.”

Bellona’s board met on Monday evening and concluded that the funds raised were sufficient to meet the foundation’s immediate obligations and allow it to continue operating. Nevertheless, Rotevatn emphasized that significant challenges remain.

“This was an emergency effort to ensure Bellona’s survival. We are enormously grateful for the response. At the same time, Bellona still faces a difficult second half of the year, during which we will substantially reduce costs and work to secure a more sustainable financial footing. We take that responsibility seriously. Bellona must never find itself in this situation again.”

On June 16, Bellona will celebrate its 40th anniversary. Until recently, it seemed uncertain whether the milestone would be marked at all. Now, Frederic Hauge is looking forward to celebrating four decades of the organization he founded in 1986.

“Bellona is my life’s work, and I am deeply relieved that this 40th-anniversary crisis has ended well. The fight for the environment continues, and Bellona will remain at the forefront of developing new solutions and advancing the green transition—as we always have.”

The post Bellona Raises NOK 13 Million, Avoids Bankruptcy appeared first on Bellona.org.

Africa stands at a pivotal crossroads. As the climate crisis intensifies in the region, it is disproportionately crushing marginalized communities, particularly women and youth. Yet, our continent is home to the world’s most abundant renewable energy resources and a vibrant, youth-driven climate movement ready to claim the future.

Every year leading up to Africa Day on May 25, Afrika Vuka Week serves as our annual moment to channel Pan-African solidarity into bold, collective action for climate justice. This year, under the banner of REPower Afrika, our message was loud, clear, and uncompromising: Access to affordable energy is a human right –  End the Political Crisis.

We are building a pan-African movement advocating for clean energy that is rooted in people’s power and the lived realities of everyday Africans.

The problem: we pay, they profit

Africa is currently trapped in a severe, manufactured energy crisis. Decades of fossil fuel extraction have left 600 million Africans without electricity access. The continent contributes only a small fraction of global greenhouse gas emissions, yet it continues to suffer disproportionately from fuel price spikes, debt distress, inflation, and food insecurity tied to global oil and gas markets. 

Ongoing global conflicts and supply chain disruptions have caused the prices of fossil fuels like gas and oil to spike yet again. While multinational corporations rake in record-breaking profits from these crises, African governments, ordinary households and businesses are being pushed into deep debt. In 2026 alone, six major oil corporations — Chevron, Shell, BP, ConocoPhillips, Exxon, and TotalEnergies — are projected to pocket $94 billion in fossil fuel profits: enough to provide solar power for the energy needs of almost 50 million people in Africa.

When fossil energy prices skyrocket, the cost of everything else follows: transportation costs spike, groceries and basic food items become unaffordable and monthly utility bills grow unmanageable. This situation is the direct result of a global system built on fossil fuels that prioritizes the profits of a few companies over the lives of millions.

A deeply unjust, gendered burden

This crisis is not gender-neutral, it hits women the hardest. Across Africa, the structural failure to provide affordable energy fuels the feminization of poverty. Women spend up to 4 hours a day on unpaid care work — triple the time of men — searching for firewood or cooking over dangerous kerosene and charcoal stoves, with 70% of rural Sub-Saharan Africa still dependent on traditional biomass.  The consequences are devastating:  severe, long-term health problems and forcing women to scramble to afford basic necessities. We cannot solve our continent’s poverty and health crises as long as we remain tied to expensive, volatile fossil fuels. It is time to put people over profits.

How Afrika Vuka Week 2026 took this fight to the streets, schools and town halls

Last month,  the 23 to 30May, we mobilized during Afrika Vuka Week 2026 under the banner of  Pan-African solidarity to redefine the energy crisis not just as a technical challenge, but as a fundamental human right and a pressing political crisis.

Over the seven days of  coordinated actions across the continent, we shifted the narrative. We made sure  affordable renewable energy was at the center of political debate and  community voices were leading  the fight for an equitable energy transition. Our  cost of living stories from locals put a human face to what rising fossil fuel prices actually mean:  unaffordability of daily life.

Throughout the Week of Action, local groups tailored interventions to their unique realities. From grassroots organizing to creative expression, communities mobilized in many ways:

Through marches and awareness walks, we demanded political accountability, including a bike march in Democratic Republic of Congo by Shujaa Initiative. 

Artivism, concerts, and pop-culture captured the spirit of resistance with Green Society holding a Art4Climate workshop in Egypt led by Professional Visual Artist Hossna Hanafy

Educational talks in schools and universities to equip the next generation like the one in Nigeria led by Quest For Growth and Development Foundation at the Community Secondary School, Rumuodumaya, Port Harcourt.

Community Dialogues & Town Halls shared lived experiences such as the Renewable Energy Assembly in Uganda led by the Centre for Environmental Research and Agriculture Innovation (CERAI) and Youth for Nature Conservancy (YNC). 

The results speak for themselves. The REPower Afrika campaign is now recognized across the continent as the definitive roadmap for a just transition away from expensive fossil fuels. Local groups owned the campaign, driving solutions built around their communities’ real needs. Because true energy justice isn’t just about switching to solar, geothermal, and wind. It’s about doing it fairly, democratically, affordably and without saddling African nations with yet more debt.

Here is what we are fighting for: a renewable energy future that dismantles the exploitative, debt-heavy funding models that burden our people. Instead, we champion community-owned, decentralized solutions. Africa rises with the sun and wind – our energy transition must empower our people, not foreign creditors.

Join the Movement: 

The Afrika Vuka Network is calling for an immediate shift toward community-led renewable energy. People deserve clean, affordable energy that puts our needs first – and it is time for our governments to deliver it. 

#AffordableEnergy – Let’s claim it together! Join our whatsapp channel for the latest updates!

The post Afrika Vuka Week 2026 appeared first on 350.

As governments search for alternatives to fossil fuels, large-scale biomass energy is increasingly being promoted as a renewable solution. But behind the industry’s rapid expansion lies a growing body of evidence showing serious harm to forests, communities, Indigenous Peoples, human health, and fundamental human rights.

Today, the Environmental Paper Network (EPN) and the Global Forest Coalition (GFC), as part of the Biomass Action Network, are launching a new briefing: The Human Rights Impacts of Large-scale ‘Modern’ Biomass Energy. Released during the UN climate negotiations (SB64) in Bonn, the briefing highlights how the production and burning of forest biomass is driving human rights abuses across the globe.

The briefing documents impacts throughout the biomass supply chain, from forest destruction and industrial tree plantations to pellet manufacturing facilities and biomass power stations. It shows how expanding demand for biomass is contributing to land grabbing, violations of Indigenous Peoples’ rights, loss of livelihoods, threats to food security, worsening air pollution, and serious public health impacts. Communities in countries including Indonesia, Nepal, Thailand, Sweden, Chile, Brazil, Ghana, Mozambique, Uganda, and the United States are already experiencing these consequences.

The briefing also highlights growing international concern, including a warning from the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and climate change that new bioenergy developments should be approached with the highest level of precaution due to significant climate, environmental, and human rights risks.

As governments negotiate climate policies in Bonn, the briefing calls on policymakers to:

• End subsidies and incentives that promote large-scale forest biomass energy;
• Stop classifying forest biomass as a renewable or carbon-neutral energy source;
• Respect and uphold the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities, including the right to Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC);
• Prioritize genuinely clean, low-impact renewable energy solutions that protect forests, biodiversity, human rights, and climate stability.

We encourage policymakers, civil society organisations, journalists, and concerned citizens to read the briefing, share it widely, and join calls for a just energy transition that protects both people and forests.

About the Biomass Action Network

The Biomass Action Network is a coalition of more than 220 NGOs across 70 countries. Our position statement, The Biomass Delusion, outlines the significant harm large-scale forest biomass burning causes to the climate, forests, people, and the clean energy transition. The network works to expose the impacts of biomass energy, amplify community voices, and advocate for policies that protect forests, uphold human rights, and accelerate a genuinely sustainable energy transition.

The Cascade Institute has partnered with Seequent, 400C Energy, INRS, and Simon Fraser University to develop the Canadian Thermal Model — a comprehensive mapping of the vast geothermal resources beneath our feet.

This national initiative will reveal Canada’s deep geothermal resources and accelerate the development of renewable energy. The announcement happened on the opening day of the world’s biggest geothermal event, being held in Calgary from June 8 to 11.

As investment in geothermal energy surges globally as a reliable, always-on clean power source, the Canadian Thermal Model will create a comprehensive national view of deep heat resources using novel machine learning methods to address a long-standing challenge for the sector: limited subsurface data coverage. Seequent is providing access to its world-leading geophysics software to accelerate research into the Earth’s subsurface.

This initiative advances knowledge of Canada’s geothermal energy reserves by integrating geologic and geophysical datasets into InterPIGNN machine learning algorithm for deep heat modelling. By improving confidence in where geothermal resources are located, the model provides a critical foundation to inform investment, policy planning, and project development nationwide.

“Canada has a significant opportunity to advance geothermal when the need for reliable, always-on clean energy has never been greater,” said Jeremy O’Brien, Energy Segment Director, Seequent. “Realizing that potential starts with greater subsurface certainty and making data accessible to key stakeholders. Combining this access with best-in-class geophysics enables more accurate mapping of heat at depth. The Canadian Thermal Model brings these elements together to create a national view of deep geothermal resources, helping to reduce risk, guide investment, and accelerate development.”

Cascade Institute specialists, working with a team of geoscientists and research partners, including Simon Fraser University, 400 C, and the Geological Survey of Canada Pacific Division, the Institute will develop the model using data integration workflows supported by Seequent’s Oasis montaj geophysics software. Seequent’s technology will process and visualize the data required to inform energy markets on resource availability and development costs.

“Canada has world-class subsurface expertise and a growing opportunity to lead in geothermal,” said Thomas Homer-Dixon, Executive Director of the Cascade Institute. “This project will provide a foundational resource to demonstrate the technical and economic viability of geothermal energy at scale.”

The Canadian Thermal Model reflects a broader industry shift toward data-driven geothermal development, including next-generation technologies and national-scale resource assessment. It also underscores the growing importance of partnerships between research institutions, technology providers, and the wider energy sector to scale geothermal from opportunity to infrastructure.

Seequent supports more than 60% of the world’s geothermal power generation, with experience spanning next-generation projects such as Fervo Energy’s Cape Station in Utah, and long-established operations including Ormat’s global footprint, reflecting deep expertise that drives the sector forward.

To kick off the collaboration, Cascade and Seequent hosted a discussion at WGC on June 8, titled “The Next Frontier: Exploring the Potential of Canada’s Deep Geothermal Resources.

The post Cascade Institute partners with Seequent to map Canada’s geothermal resources appeared first on Cascade Institute.

Last month, Louisiana’s state legislature officially passed HB670. Soon the governor will sign the bill. This opens the door for a major expansion of the biomass industry. It makes it […]

The post Statement: Louisiana Passes Legislation to Bail Out Biomass first appeared on Dogwood Alliance.

In 2023, federal rollbacks stripped Clean Water Act protections from 95% of New Mexico’s streams and up to 88% of its wetlands. New Mexico responded by passing Senate Bill 21 to create its own surface water permitting program. Now, a rulemaking will take place June 8–18 before the state Water Quality Control Commission to decide how SB 21 is implemented. Without strong rules, our water will remain at risk along with the communities, fish, and wildlife that depend on it.

Western Resource Advocates is representing Audubon, Trout Unlimited, Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, and the New Mexico Wildlife Federation. The Western Environmental Law Center is representing Amigos Bravos, the New Mexico Acequia Association, and NM Wild. The groups will advocate for robust rules that protect the full breadth of New Mexico’s surface water, restore protections lost through federal rollbacks, ensure robust public participation, and protect wildlife.

Details: June 8–18 from 9 AM to 5 PM. Public comment at 1 PM daily.

• In person: NM State Capitol, Old Santa Fe Trail, Santa Fe. The hearing will now occur in several rooms around the Roundhouse depending on the day:

• • Monday 6/8 – Room 307
  • Tues-Thurs 6/9-6/11 – Room 309
  • Friday 6/12– Room 307
  • The week of 6/15-6/18 – Room 322
• Virtually: https://nmed-oit.webex.com/wbxmjs/joinservice/sites/nmed-oit/meeting/download/705f1604d77d4ce8bfb4c44c14697e2d?MTID=me02ef4ae5b96453c008f74681b141034
• Visit the state Events Calendar for more information.

Why it Matters:

• Clean water sustains a growing $50 billion annual agriculture industry led by chile, pecans, onions, and fruit.
• Water helps sustain New Mexico’s outdoor recreation economy, generating hundreds of millions of dollars every year.
• Centuries-old acequia systems require clean water to keep New Mexico’s culture alive. The health and wellbeing of our families rely on clean water.
• Over 70% of New Mexico’s birds are dependent on surface waters and wetlands.
• New Mexico’s waters face numerous threats. Climate change is making our state drier every year. With higher temperatures and worsening aridification, our limited water sources need to be protected.
• Industrial growth from mining, oil and gas exploration, and data centers are all increasing demands on our water sources while presenting serious pollution dangers.

Contacts: 

Tannis Fox, Western Environmental Law Center, 505-629-0732, fox@westernlaw.org

Rachel Conn, Amigos Bravos, 575-770-8327, rconn@amigosbravos.org

Tricia Snyder, New Mexico Wild, 575-636-0625, tricia@nmwild.org

Allie Ruckman, Western Resource Advocates, 983-203-1103, allie.ruckman@westernresources.org

Itzayana Banda, The Semilla Project, 720-532-3293, itzayana@semillastrategies.org

The post Media advisory: NM rulemaking for Surface Water Permitting Program 6/8-6/18 appeared first on Western Environmental Law Center.

The shipping industry has a harmful secret—hiding just beneath the waterline. Barnacles, algae and microbial slime covering ship hulls may seem like a minor maintenance issue, but they drag on vessels, drive up fuel use and quietly add to global emissions while also spreading invasive species across oceans. Now, Bellona is contributing to a growing international campaign that is putting a spotlight on this overlooked frontier of climate and ocean policy: keeping hulls clean.

It sounds absurdly simple. Clean ships more often, burn less fuel, move fewer harmful species across ecosystems. But that straightforward fix is drawing serious interest from regulators, scientists and the maritime industry, who increasingly see regular hull cleaning as a unique environmental solution with multiple payoffs. In ports around the world, new standards, technologies and cooperative efforts are reframing what was once routine upkeep as something much larger—a practical tool for protecting biodiversity, cutting carbon and making global shipping cleaner from the bottom up.

A solution that went unnoticed

For years, though, the idea remained invisible—even to people working in maritime sustainability. “I had also never heard about in-water cleaning,” Irene Øvstebø Tvedten, a senior advisor at the Bellona Foundation and project leader of the Clean Hull Initiative, said recently. “So it’s the environmental solution that has come completely under the radar.”

That obscurity is part of what makes the current shift so striking. Biofouling—the accumulation of marine life on ship hulls—has long been treated primarily as a technical or economic concern. Shipowners worried about fuel efficiency; engineers experimented with coatings; ports occasionally imposed restrictions from an environmental standpoint. But the issue rarely commanded sustained attention as a broader environmental solution. “It’s not been something that’s been promoted from an environmental standpoint previously,” Tvedten noted. “Mostly from a fuel-saving standpoint.”

According to the International Maritime Organization’s Third Greenhouse Gas Study, shipping accounts for roughly 2.5 percent of global greenhouse-gas emissions. Yet something as mundane as marine growth on a ship’s hull can have an outsized impact. The study estimated that biofouling imposes a roughly 9 percent resistance penalty on vessels, forcing them to burn more fuel and produce approximately 9 percent more emissions than they otherwise would. The Clean Hull Initiative says that finding underscores a simple point: cleaner hulls represent one of the most immediate opportunities to reduce emissions from one of the world’s most difficult industries to decarbonize.

Reframing the problem

Bellona has been chief among the organizations helping change that framing. Through years of research, policy work and advocacy—published in both English and Norwegian—the organization began connecting what had often been treated as separate problems: emissions, invasive species and marine pollution. The logic was simple. A fouled hull increases drag; increased drag requires more fuel; more fuel means more emissions. At the same time, those same layers of marine growth act as transport systems for organisms that would otherwise never cross oceans.

That shift has also become increasingly visible within the shipping industry itself. “The conversation has clearly broadened,” said Heine Stangeby, the global communications specialist for Jotun, a Norwegian firm that specializes in paints and coatings for ship hulls.  “When Jotun launched its Hull Performance Solutions 15 years ago, it was a small revolution as it moved the shift over to performance—meaning measurable speed loss avoidance. This soon became translated to avoided emissions.” More recently, he added, the industry’s understanding has expanded further, with “more awareness on the biodiversity issue” and growing recognition that maintaining clean hulls can both reduce emissions and limit the spread of invasive species.

The scale of the problem is easy to underestimate precisely because it is so diffuse. According to figures cited by the Clean Hull Initiative, biofouling contributes tens of millions of tons of additional carbon dioxide emissions annually—an impact spread thinly across the global fleet but immense when taken together. Meanwhile, it remains “the main vector for the transfer of invasive aquatic species,” as Tvedten put it, quietly reshaping ecosystems far from where ships first set sail.

Bellona’s Irene Østvebø Tvedten, who helped create the new ISO standard.

Yet if the problem is global, the obstacles to solving it are often local. Ports and regulators—those with the authority to allow or ban hull cleaning—have historically been wary of the practice, particularly when it takes place in the water. The concern is intuitive: cleaning a hull might release pollutants or organisms into the surrounding environment. The result, in some cases, has been outright prohibition.

“The main bottleneck here are the ports and other regulators that just ban in-water cleaning,” Tvedten explained. “Often because they don’t have enough knowledge about it and they think it’s just harmful to the environment.”

Cleaning as a solution, not a risk

Bellona’s intervention has been to challenge that assumption—not by dismissing the risks, but by reframing the balance of them. “What we try to communicate is that in-water cleaning is primarily a solution,” Tvedten said. “It’s a solution to the spread of invasive species, because if you don’t have biofouling, the organisms won’t spread.”

That argument, while straightforward, runs up against a more complicated reality. Not all cleaning is equal. Removing thick layers of barnacles and mussels—and what practitioners sometimes refer to, less delicately, as “sea vomit,” or more formally, carpet sea squirt—can release significant biological material into the water if not properly captured. By contrast, removing early-stage growth—thin films of slime or algae—poses far less risk.

This distinction has become central to Bellona’s approach. Rather than treating hull cleaning as a binary—allowed or banned—the organization has advocated for more nuanced, risk-based standards. Clean early, before fouling becomes severe; differentiate between levels of growth; require capture technologies where risks are highest, but not necessarily in all cases. The goal is not perfection, but practicality: a system that encourages frequent, preventive cleaning rather than infrequent, reactive intervention.

Biofouling on a ship hull that has been allowed to develop too far into macrofouling. Photo: Bellona

Industry participants increasingly frame the issue in much the same way. “Would you rather prevent a fire or put out a fire that has already started?” Jotun’s Stangeby said. “We are working on the preventive side of the industry.” Waiting until heavy macrofouling develops, he said, makes cleaning more difficult, more invasive and ultimately less effective than maintaining what he described as “an always clean hull.” Early cleaning, he added, not only lowers fuel consumption and emissions, but can also reduce the likelihood that larger organisms are carried between ecosystems.

“A lot of the cleanings that occur today are reactive,” Tvedten observed—performed only after fouling has already become a significant problem. Bellona’s Clean Hull Initiative, by contrast, promotes proactive cleaning: addressing buildup when it is still minimal, when both environmental and operational costs are lowest.

Writing the rules of the waterline

Turning that philosophy into policy, however, requires more than persuasion. It requires standards—shared frameworks that ports, shipowners and service providers can trust. That is where Bellona’s work with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has become especially significant.

The Clean Hull Initiative helped draft a proposal for an ISO standard on in-water cleaning, with Tvedten serving as project leader. The aim was not to dictate specific environmental thresholds, but to establish a common language and process: how cleaning operations should be documented, how their impacts should be measured, and how ports might evaluate them. “If you have an environmental solution that’s new, you need to also create the systems and routines around it,” she said.

The ISO working group in Stockholm. Photo: Bellona

According to Stangeby, collaboration between environmental groups and industry has been essential in bringing the issue into mainstream maritime policy discussions. “Biofouling represents a threat to the environment both in terms of emissions and biodiversity, and no single stakeholder can address it alone,” he said. Environmental organizations such as Bellona, he added, “have helped raise awareness and push the topic onto the policy agenda, while industry contributes operational insight and practical solutions.”

The Clean Hull Initiative, he said, has helped “create a more informed dialogue and build the trust needed to develop workable standards,” including the recently adopted ISO 6319 framework.

In practice, that means enabling regulators to make more informed decisions—moving beyond blanket bans toward conditional approvals based on evidence. Service providers, whether diver teams or remotely operated vehicle operators, are expected to document what they plan to do and what effects their methods have on water quality. Ports, in turn, can assess whether those practices meet their environmental criteria.

Industry participants say cleaning technologies themselves have also evolved rapidly in response to regulatory concerns. “There is a clear shift towards more controlled and proactive approaches, supported by monitoring and data,” Stangeby said.

From standards to global policy

The influence of that work is already beginning to ripple outward. The International Maritime Organization has finalized guidelines on biofouling and hull maintenance, and many of the same experts contribute to both IMO and ISO processes. What began as a technical standard is gradually helping shape broader international policy discussions around environmentally sound hull cleaning.

Meanwhile, the practical case for more frequent cleaning continues to strengthen. Many operators still wait two or three years before conducting in-water cleaning, allowing significant biofouling to accumulate in the meantime. From Tvedten’s perspective, that is often far too late. Cleaning should begin “much earlier,” as a preventive measure, Tvedten said—before buildup becomes a hazard rather than a minor inconvenience.

The implications extend beyond environmental protection. Cleaner hulls mean less drag, which means lower fuel consumption and reduced costs for shipowners. In an industry defined by tight margins and global competition, that economic incentive may prove as important as any regulation.

For now, the shift remains uneven. Some ports are experimenting with new rules and technologies; others remain cautious. But the direction of travel is becoming clearer.

What was once an obscure technical issue is moving onto the international agenda. And in that transition, Bellona’s work offers a reminder that not all environmental solutions require sweeping technological breakthroughs. Some, it turns out, involve paying closer attention to what has been there all along: a thin, stubborn layer of life clinging to the underside of the global economy.

The post Below the waterline, there’s an elegant climate solution appeared first on Bellona.org.

Western Watersheds Project, represented by the Western Environmental Law Center, today appealed a decision by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to revoke American Prairie’s authority to graze bison on public lands in northeastern Montana—a move that conflicts with plain statutory language, defies decades of settled law, and contradicts BLM’s own prior decisions.

BLM issued the bison permits in 2022 after completing a multi-year environmental review finding that bison grazing is permissible on public lands and in fact would be better for prairie grasslands than cattle. Now, in a politically motivated reversal, over the course of just five months, the agency decided to rescind the bison permits under a brand new theory that a livestock owner must be a “production-oriented” entity, and did so without defining what that means.

“BLM’s new interpretation has no basis in law and contradicts its own findings,” said Pete Frost, attorney at the Western Environmental Law Center. “BLM reversed itself due to politics, not the law, nor the need to restore prairie grasslands.”

In 2022, BLM decided that reading a “production” requirement into federal law “would read words and requirements” into the law that don’t exist. Instead, at that time, BLM said it can “issue permits to any stock owner.”

The BLM’s 2022 decision found that privately-owned bison are domestic livestock under the Taylor Grazing Act, the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, and the Multiple-Use Sustained Yield Act—a conclusion consistent with Montana state law, which consistently treated American Prairie’s bison herd as “livestock,” by levying taxes and imposing disease testing requirements. Indeed, the U.S. Forest Service defines livestock under the Taylor Grazing Act as “…animals of any kind kept or raised for [any] use or pleasure.”

Even so, American Prairie has provided thousands of pounds of bison meat to area food banks and supplies bison to other entities for food, commercial, and cultural purposes.

“The Trump administration’s revocation of these bison grazing permits is beyond bizarre because bison evolved with High Plains ecosystems and are better for land health, better for wildlife, and better for the public than cattle,” said Erik Molvar, executive director of Western Watersheds Project. “Tribes also have bison herds for cultural, ecological, and subsistence purposes, which this permit revocation would threaten if it went through.”

A Congressional Research Service report published January 22, 2026, further underscores the weakness of the administration’s position, noting that 88% of BLM grazing authorizations are for cattle, yearlings, and bison, and reaffirming the longstanding Interior Department conclusion that bison qualify as livestock under the Taylor Grazing Act.

The political origins of this reversal are clear. As reported by Public Domain, the 2022 bison grazing decision was appealed by ranching groups represented by Karen Budd-Falen—now one of the highest ranking officials at the Department of Interior. Further, Sec. Burgum personally intervened to direct BLM to reconsider, ultimately producing the outcome Budd-Falen’s former clients sought.

The permit revocation is the first step in a broader effort to lock cattle and sheep interests into permanent dominance over public lands grazing—just days following the decision, the agency released proposed grazing regulations containing the same “production-oriented” requirement. If finalized, those rules would frustrate and obstruct the restoration of bison on public lands on 155 million acres across the western U.S.

Western Environmental Law Center and Western Watersheds Project will pursue all available administrative remedies and, if necessary, file suit to prevent the unlawful eviction of bison from these public lands.

Contacts:

Pete Frost, Western Environmental Law Center, 541-543-0018, frost@westernlaw.org

Erik Molvar, Western Watersheds Project, 307-399-7910, emolvar@westernwatersheds.org

 

The post Conservation groups challenge Trump administration’s move to banish bison from public lands appeared first on Western Environmental Law Center.

Celebrate and support CELDF’s Declaring Disruption Campaign by reading our mid-year impact report and donating to CELDF to help us meet our 50/20 goals! - Raising $50,000 and welcoming 20 new donors.

The post CELDF Declares Disruption – 2026 Mid-Year Campaign! appeared first on CELDF - Community Rights Pioneers - Protecting Nature and Communities.

*Read the full position paper with detailed analysis and demands for all key negotiating topics here*

Climate Justice in an Age of Genocide, Militarism and Climate Breakdown

SB64 (the 64th meeting of the Subsidiary Bodies of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, or UNFCCC, from June 8-18 in Bonn, Germany) convenes at a moment when the contradictions shaping the international climate regime have become impossible to ignore. Across the world, communities are confronting escalating climate impacts alongside deepening militarisation, debt crises, economic instability, shrinking civic space, rising authoritarianism and the continued concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a small number of states, corporations and financial actors. The climate crisis is unfolding not in isolation, but resulting from a global political order structured by histories and ongoing acts of colonisation, imperialism, racial capitalism, patriarchy, extractivism and the continued sacrifice of peoples and ecosystems in the pursuit of profit for a few.

DCJ joins social justice movements around the world standing in solidarity with the peoples currently resisting the imperial attacks by the nexus of the U.S.-Israel and its allies across the world, especially Palestine, Iran, Lebanon, Yemen, Haití, Cuba, Venezuela, Nigeria, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, among others. We stand in solidarity with peoples across the world who have been on the receiving end of imperial wars, invasions, attacks to their sovereignty and their right to self-determination. We condemn the subjection of civilians to warfare for territory, natural resources, or religious conflict anywhere and everywhere. We stand in strong opposition to the perpetuation of human and environmental suffering across the world.  We commit to a solidarity not based in words but in actions. There cannot be emancipation and liberation with ongoing imperial and colonial capitalism, which must be our first priority to dismantle.

This context matters because climate negotiations are not politically neutral spaces. They are shaped by the same global inequalities that produced the crisis. The countries and corporations most responsible for climate breakdown continue to hold disproportionate power over the terms of climate action, while the peoples and communities most affected continue to fight for their rights and justice. Every major issue on the agenda for SB64, from climate finance, adaptation, loss and damage to just transition, fossil fuel phase-out, mitigation and false solutions, reflects a broader struggle over rights, responsibility, redistribution and the future of multilateralism.

The ongoing genocide in Palestine, carried out by Israel with the military, political and economic backing of the United States and its allies, has laid bare the brutality and hypocrisy of the present international order. The destruction of Palestinian life, land, food systems, water infrastructure, energy systems, homes, hospitals, schools and places of worship is not only a humanitarian catastrophe. It is also a profound indictment of an international system that claims to uphold human rights, international law and multilateral cooperation while enabling impunity for occupation, apartheid and genocide. For climate justice movements, this moment demands political clarity: there can be no climate justice while genocide is normalised, while occupation is greenwashed, and while systems of militarism and fossil capitalism continue to destroy both peoples and ecosystems.

The relationship between militarism and climate breakdown is not incidental. Fossil fuels remain central to modern military power, geopolitical conflicts and domination, and global economic control. Military operations depend on oil, gas and petrochemical supply chains; fossil fuel revenues and infrastructure shape conflicts and geopolitical alliances; and the military-industrial complex absorbs vast public resources that could otherwise be directed towards climate finance, adaptation, public services and just transition. At the same time, war and occupation destroy the very systems that communities need to survive climate impacts: land, water, food, healthcare, housing, energy and social infrastructure.

This is why the climate crisis must be understood as part of a broader crisis of power imbalance. The same global system that drives emissions also drives war, displacement, debt, extraction and ecological destruction. It is a system that allows fossil fuel corporations to profit while communities lose homes and livelihoods; that allows governments to expand military budgets while claiming there is no money for climate finance; that allows financial institutions to enforce austerity while climate-vulnerable countries are forced to borrow to recover from disasters they did not cause.

The Global South continues to bear the brunt of this injustice. Countries and communities that contributed least to the climate crisis are facing the most severe impacts while being denied the resources necessary to respond. Many developing countries are trapped in cycles of debt servicing, austerity and extractive dependency that restrict their ability to invest in adaptation, public services, food sovereignty, energy transformation and resilient development. International financial institutions, unequal trade rules, intellectual property barriers and investor protections continue to constrain the policy space required for a just transition. In this context, calls for ambition that do not address finance, debt, technology and historical responsibility will become new forms of burden-shifting.

COP30 in Belém created important openings, but it did not resolve these contradictions. The establishment of the Just Transition Mechanism represented a significant victory for developing countries, workers, Indigenous Peoples, feminist movements, youth, frontline communities and climate justice organisations. It reflected years of organising to ensure that transition is not reduced to market-led technological substitution but understood as a question of justice, rights, livelihoods and systems transformation. The roadmap process on transitioning away from fossil fuels also opened a political space to confront the root cause of the climate crisis. Progress on adaptation and related implementation processes created additional possibilities for advancing rights-based and people-centred climate action.

Yet COP30 also demonstrated the continued resistance of developed countries to fulfilling their obligations. Finance remained inadequate. Article 9.1 continued to be contested and diluted. Adaptation and loss and damage remained underfunded. Fossil fuel interests and false solutions continued to shape climate action. Carbon markets, offsets, carbon capture, financialised nature schemes and other mechanisms continued to be promoted as substitutes for real emissions reductions, public finance and system change. The outcomes of Belém therefore created both opportunities and risks. SB64 is where many of these political battles now move from recognition to operationalisation.

This distinction is critical. The fight after Belém is no longer only about whether Parties acknowledge the need for climate finance, just transition, adaptation, loss and damage or fossil fuel phase-out. It is about how those commitments are interpreted, governed, financed and implemented. History shows that implementation is often where justice is diluted. Commitments secured through struggle can be narrowed through technical processes, weakened through procedural delays, captured by corporate interests or redirected towards market mechanisms. SB64 must therefore be approached as a political battleground over the future direction of climate action.

For DCJ, the demands ahead of SB64 are rooted in a clear understanding of climate justice. Developed countries must fulfil their obligations under Article 9.1 and provide public, grant-based, predictable and adequate finance to developing countries. Adaptation and loss and damage must be financed as matters of rights and reparative justice. The Just Transition Mechanism must be operationalised in ways that support systemic transformation across energy, food, care, labour, public services, critical minerals and development pathways. The transition away from fossil fuels must be rapid, equitable, anti-extractivist and grounded in the political vision emerging from Santa Marta. Article 6 and other false solutions must not be allowed to delay real action or create new markets for pollution and dispossession. Mitigation must remain anchored in equity, CBDR-RC and means of implementation rather than becoming another tool for shifting burdens onto developing countries.

SB64 must also defend the integrity of climate multilateralism itself. This means protecting civic space, ensuring meaningful participation of rights-holders and movements, and confronting corporate capture within the UNFCCC. It means recognising that fossil fuel corporations, big polluters and actors complicit in militarism, occupation and ecological destruction cannot be allowed to define climate solutions or climate action. It means understanding that climate governance will lose legitimacy if it continues to treat the demands of the most affected as negotiable while protecting the interests of those most responsible.

The climate crisis is often described as a crisis of emissions. It is that, but it is also far more. It is a crisis of colonial history, economic organisation, political power and moral accountability. Addressing it requires more than technical implementation. It requires reparations, redistribution, democratic participation, public finance, energy sovereignty, food sovereignty, gender justice, Indigenous sovereignty and the dismantling of the systems that have made both people and planet expendable.

This position paper sets out DCJ’s priorities for SB64 from that perspective. It is written in the understanding that climate justice will not be delivered through incremental adjustments to an unjust system. It will require confronting the structures that created the crisis and building pathways rooted in collective survival, dignity and liberation. Systems change, not climate change.

Climate Finance Work Programme and Article 9.1

Climate finance remains the defining test of whether the climate regime is prepared to uphold the principles of equity and historical responsibility agreed at Rio in the 1992 UNFCCC. Developed countries continue to fall far short of their obligations despite overwhelming evidence that sufficient resources exist to finance transformative climate action. The struggle over Article 9.1 is not merely a debate about financial flows. It is a struggle over responsibility itself.

As articulated in its official submission, DCJ rejects attempts to frame climate finance as aid, philanthropy or voluntary support. Climate finance is an obligation rooted in historical responsibility and climate debt. Developed countries must provide public, grant-based, predictable and adequate finance consistent with their commitments under the UNFCCC and Paris Agreement. Climate finance must also be understood within a broader framework of reparative justice that includes debt cancellation, reform of the international financial architecture and mechanisms to ensure that those who have profited most from climate destruction contribute proportionately to addressing its consequences.

Adaptation Finance and the Global Goal on Adaptation

Adaptation is a matter of survival for billions of people across the Global South. Yet adaptation finance remains dramatically inadequate despite rapidly growing needs. Communities are already confronting severe climate impacts while lacking access to the resources necessary to strengthen resilience and protect livelihoods.

DCJ calls for a substantial increase in public, grant-based adaptation finance and rejects efforts to rely on private finance and market mechanisms. Adaptation must be grounded in rights, participation, Indigenous knowledge, food sovereignty and community leadership. The continued development of the Global Goal on Adaptation must support implementation rather than becoming an exercise in technocratic measurement detached from lived realities.

Loss and Damage

The climate crisis is already causing irreversible harms that cannot be prevented through mitigation or adaptation alone. Communities are losing homes, livelihoods, ecosystems, cultures and territories as climate impacts intensify. COP27’s establishment of the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) represented an important political victory, but current levels of finance remain wholly inadequate compared to actual needs.

DCJ reiterates that loss and damage finance must be understood as reparative finance. It must be new, additional, grant-based and distinct from adaptation and mitigation finance. Polluter-pays mechanisms, including taxes on fossil fuel extraction, extreme wealth and corporate windfall profits, should be advanced as important sources of finance.

Operationalising the Just Transition Mechanism

The establishment of the Just Transition Mechanism at COP30 represented a significant achievement. However, the creation of a mechanism alone does not guarantee justice. A central question in Bonn is whether the way SB64 defines and designs the Mechanism will support transformative change or merely manage the social consequences of existing economic models.

DCJ rejects narrow approaches that reduce just transition to energy sector restructuring or workforce adjustment. Just transition must encompass food systems, care economies, public services, critical minerals, workers’ rights, Indigenous sovereignty and democratic control over resources. The Mechanism must be supported by adequate finance and meaningful participation by workers, Indigenous Peoples, peasants, fisherfolk, women, youth and frontline communities.

Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels

COP28’s commitment in Dubai to transition away from fossil fuels marked an important breakthrough, but implementation remains contested. The “roadmap” process initiated under the Brazilian COP30 Presidency (as opposed to any agreed mandate by all countries) must not become a vehicle for delaying action or reproducing extractivist development models under new forms.

Drawing on the political vision emerging from Santa Marta, DCJ calls for a transition rooted in justice, sovereignty, care and democratic control. The transition away from fossil fuels must not be used to justify new forms of extraction, including the expansion of critical mineral supply chains that sacrifice communities and ecosystems in the Global South. Climate justice requires confronting both fossil fuels and the systems of power that sustain them.

Article 6 and False Solutions

Climate justice movements continue to confront the expansion of false solutions that allow polluters to delay structural transformation while claiming climate leadership. Carbon markets, offsets, carbon capture technologies, geoengineering and the financialisation of nature all risk entrenching existing power structures while failing to address the root causes of climate breakdown.

The continued promotion of false solutions reflects the influence of fossil fuel interests and corporate actors within climate governance. SB64 must resist efforts to expand reliance in Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) on market-based approaches and instead prioritise real solutions rooted in public accountability, food sovereignty, Indigenous stewardship, community-controlled renewable energy and systemic transformation.

Mitigation Work Programme

The Mitigation Work Programme must remain firmly grounded in equity and CBDR-RC. Developing countries have repeatedly raised concerns regarding attempts to use the MWP as a vehicle for shifting mitigation burdens onto countries least responsible for the climate crisis while developed countries continue to evade obligations on finance and support.

Mitigation ambition cannot be separated from means of implementation. Climate finance, technology transfer, debt justice and policy space remain essential prerequisites for equitable climate action.

Cross-Cutting Priorities

Across all negotiating tracks, DCJ calls for climate action grounded in equity, historical responsibility, human rights, Indigenous sovereignty, feminist climate justice, democratic participation and protection from corporate capture. Climate governance must strengthen civic space, ensure meaningful participation by rights-holders and adopt robust conflict-of-interest policies that prevent fossil fuel interests and big polluters from shaping climate action.

The Challenge Before SB64

A central challenge facing SB64 is not the absence of solutions. Communities, movements and frontline peoples have long advanced pathways capable of addressing both climate breakdown and social injustice. The challenge is whether governments are prepared to confront the structures of power and privilege that continue to benefit from the crisis.

For DCJ, climate action must be rooted in reparative justice, international solidarity and systemic transformation. Anything less will preserve the unequal and unjust systems that created the climate crisis while leaving its underlying causes intact. SB64 must therefore advance implementation in ways that strengthen accountability, uphold historical responsibility and support the system change grounded in the peoples led solutions necessary to secure a just, equitable, healthy life and planet for all.

*Read the full position paper with detailed analysis and demands for all key negotiating topics here*

The post SB64 POSITION PAPER: Advancing Climate Justice in an Age of Crisis appeared first on Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice.

Press contact: Hannah Lawrence, +436706504192, press@stay-grounded.org The World Cup is ‘flying us to the brink of climate collapse’, say campaigners as final preparations are made for the opening ceremony in Mexico City on Thursday. Stay Grounded has called out the mega-event which is predicted to be the most polluting in history, generating 7.7 million tonnes of CO2 from air…

Source

Join members of the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice as we explore how the Just Transition
Mechanism can support holistic and integrated transitions across sectors such as energy, food systems and land use.

Monday 8 June 2026

12:00-13:15

Room Berlin

The post Bonn SB64 side event: How can the Just Transition Mechanism support holistic transitions across sectors? appeared first on Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice.

Last night, a Russian drone struck a spent nuclear fuel storage facility at Chernobyl. It is precisely this kind of event that Bellona has spent nearly forty years working to understand—and helping the world prepare for.

For nearly four decades, Bellona has been one of Europe’s leading independent organizations working on nuclear safety, environmental security, and developments in Russia and the Arctic. As war has returned to Europe and nuclear risks have once again become a central security concern, that expertise is more important than ever.

Former German Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck recently summarized Bellona’s unique role:

“Bellona has played a key role in shaping the European agenda, not only on environment and decarbonization, but almost more importantly on the major issue of the Arctic and European security. This may come as a surprise to many who know Bellona purely as an environmental NGO. They have been deeply involved in developing Europe’s response to Russian nuclear activities, nuclear-powered vessels, and nuclear waste.”

Today, Bellona faces a severe financial crisis that threatens the continuation of this work.

Four Decades of Work

Bellona began its engagement in the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, drawing international attention to environmental degradation, nuclear risks, and military pollution in the Arctic and northern Russia.

Over the decades that followed, Bellona became one of the most influential independent voices on nuclear safety and environmental security in the region.

Working alongside partners in Russia, Norway, Europe, and North America, Bellona helped expose some of the largest concentrations of nuclear waste and nuclear hazards inherited from the Soviet Union. The organization played an important role in mobilizing international attention and support for efforts that resulted in the dismantlement and secure storage of roughly 100 retired submarine reactors, the dismantling of the Lepse nuclear service vessel, work related to the wrecks of the Komsomolets and Kursk submarines, and the remediation of dangerous nuclear facilities located only a short distance from Norway’s border.

These efforts significantly reduced the risk of nuclear accidents and radioactive contamination in the Arctic and Barents region.

Bellona founder Frederic Hauge, (then Conservative Party leader) Kaci Kullmann Five and (then EU Commissioner for Environment) Ioannis Paleokrassas, in Murmansk in 1994. Photo: Bellona. Bellona and the FSB

Bellona’s work did not stop with documenting environmental and nuclear risks. It also became a test of whether independent organizations could expose those risks without intimidation from the state.

For decades, Bellona worked directly with Russian institutions, scientists, military officers, regulators, and government officials. In the process, the organization came into contact with many of the individuals who would later become central figures in Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

One of them was Alexander Gutsan.

Today, Gutsan serves as Russia’s Prosecutor General and is one of the most senior officials in the Russian state. In the 1990s, however, he was involved in one of the most consequential legal battles Bellona ever faced: the prosecution of Bellona employee and former Soviet Navy submarine captain Alexander Nikitin.

Alexander Gutsan during the Nikitin case in 1999.

The case was intended to punish those who exposed environmental and nuclear-safety problems within Russia’s Northern Fleet. Instead, it became an internationally recognized victory for transparency, freedom of information, and civil society.

The collapse of the Soviet Union left Russia’s security services fragmented and competing for influence. The successor organizations that emerged from the ruins of the KGB spent much of the early 1990s struggling to define their roles and authority in the new Russian state. When those structures were eventually consolidated into what became the Federal Security Service—the FSB—the organization was eager to demonstrate its power.

On October 5, 1995, FSB officers carried out coordinated raids on Bellona’s offices in Murmansk, the homes of Bellona employees, and Alexander Nikitin’s apartment in St. Petersburg. Documents were seized, computers confiscated, employees interrogated, and an investigation was launched that would ultimately become one of the most significant political trials and one of the most important human rights and freedom-of-information battles in post-Soviet Russia.

Nikitin was arrested by the FSB in 1996. The absurd process against Nikitin lasted almost five years and was based on secret decrees with retroactive effect. Photo: Sergei Grachev/The St Petersburg Times

What began as an attempt to suppress a Bellona report on nuclear dangers within Russia’s Northern Fleet became a legal struggle that lasted nearly five years. Nikitin was charged with treason and espionage for helping document environmental and safety problems associated with Russia’s nuclear submarine fleet.

The prosecution failed.

In 2000, Russia’s Supreme Court fully acquitted Nikitin, making him the only person in Russian history to defeat espionage charges brought by the country’s security services.

The institutions and individuals behind the case, however, did not disappear.

Many continued their ascent through the Russian state. Vladimir Putin, then a former KGB officer entering the Kremlin’s inner circle, would soon become president. Alexander Gutsan would later occupy some of the most powerful positions within Russia’s legal and security systems. The institutions that targeted Bellona in the 1990s became central pillars of the political system that exists in Russia today.

Nearly three decades later, Bellona’s history with figures such as Gutsan provides a unique perspective on the evolution of the Russian state—from the uncertain post-Soviet years to the increasingly militarized and authoritarian regime now waging war against Ukraine.

In many ways, Bellona’s history and the history of the modern FSB have unfolded in parallel. The same security structures that raided Bellona’s offices in 1995, prosecuted Alexander Nikitin, and later forced Bellona Murmansk to close under Russia’s “foreign agent” legislation remain central to the Russian state today.

Bellona survived each of these confrontations and, in the process, accumulated a hard-earned understanding of Russia’s security institutions that few organizations anywhere in the world can match.

Igor Kudrik leaves the FSB offices in Murmansk after retrieving what the security service confiscated from Bellona. Photo: Thomas Nielsen Preserving Expertise as War Returned to Europe

The victory in the Nikitin case allowed Bellona to continue its work in Russia for more than two decades. It also established the organization as one of the Kremlin’s most persistent critics on issues of nuclear safety, environmental protection, government secrecy, and democratic accountability.

When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Bellona maintained offices in Murmansk and St. Petersburg and employed more than twenty staff members in the country.

The organization immediately closed its Russian operations and evacuated key personnel to safety abroad.

Today, Bellona’s experts continue to monitor developments in the Arctic, analyze the activities of Rosatom, document environmental and nuclear-security risks associated with Russia’s war against Ukraine, and support international efforts to understand and address those risks.

Their expertise is regularly sought by governments, international organizations, researchers, journalists, and civil society organizations throughout Europe and North America.

Alexander Gutsan (to Putin’s right) is currently Russia’s Prosecutor General.

Few organizations possess comparable knowledge, networks, or access to information accumulated through more than three decades of work.

Bellona’s Role in Ukraine

Bellona’s history offers something increasingly rare: institutional memory.

Few organizations can draw a direct line from the environmental and nuclear struggles of the 1990s to today’s Russia. If this work disappears, Europe will lose one of its most experienced independent sources of information on Russian nuclear activities, Arctic security, environmental risks, and the long-term consequences of war.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Bellona has devoted a significant share of its resources and expertise to understanding and documenting the environmental, nuclear, and security consequences of the conflict. Drawing on decades of experience with Russian nuclear issues, our experts have helped governments, international organizations, journalists, and researchers better understand developments that often remain hidden behind the front lines.

Pavel Tishakov from Nordic Security, Roman Yuriev and Maksym Ilchenko from the Border Guard Service of Ukraine, Bellona founder Frederic Hauge, Charlotte Birke from DSA and State Secretary Eivind Vad Petersson from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Photo: Bellona.

From the occupation of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant to Rosatom’s role in the war and the long-term environmental consequences of military operations, Bellona has sought not only to document events as they unfold, but also to identify the risks and challenges that Ukraine and Europe will face in the years ahead.

By increasing transparency, informing public debate, and helping the international community understand the realities Ukraine faces, Bellona’s work contributes to protecting Ukraine’s people, environment, and critical infrastructure during the war. Looking beyond the conflict, Bellona’s decades of experience with nuclear safety, radioactive waste management, environmental remediation, and Soviet-era industrial pollution can also help support Ukraine’s future reconstruction.

Just as Bellona played a role in addressing some of the most dangerous environmental and nuclear legacies inherited from the Soviet Union, we hope to contribute our expertise to helping Ukraine confront and overcome the environmental consequences of war, rebuild safely, and secure a healthier future for generations to come.

A selection of our reports on Ukraine, the war, and Russia’s nuclear industry: Rosatom 2025

What happens when one of the world’s largest nuclear corporations becomes an instrument of wartime state policy? This report examines how Rosatom has evolved beyond civilian nuclear energy into a central component of Russia’s geopolitical ambitions. Bellona analyzes the corporation’s role in occupied Ukraine, international energy markets, and strategic infrastructure projects, and explores what these developments mean for nuclear safety, European security, and international governance.

Report: https://etc.bellona.org/publication/rosatom-in-2025/

The IAEA’s Role in Times of War

What happens when a nuclear power plant becomes a battlefield? This report examines the occupation of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant and the unprecedented challenges it poses for international nuclear safety and security. Bellona argues that existing international institutions were never designed to address the military seizure of civilian nuclear facilities and proposes reforms to prevent nuclear infrastructure from becoming a tool of war.

Report: https://etc.bellona.org/publication/the-iaeas-role-in-times-of-war/

The Potential Restart of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant

Could Russia restart a nuclear reactor in the middle of an active war zone? Bellona analyzes evidence that Russian authorities may seek to restart reactors at the occupied Zaporizhzhia plant and examines the technical, safety, and political risks such a decision would create.

Report: https://etc.bellona.org/publication/the-potential-restart-of-the-zaporizhzhia-nuclear-power-plant-analysis-of-technical-and-political-aspects/

The Radiation Risks of Seizing the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant

Published shortly after the plant’s seizure, this report was among the first detailed analyses of the nuclear risks posed by active warfare around a major civilian nuclear facility. Many of the dangers identified by Bellona—including threats to the plant’s external power supply—have since become central concerns for international nuclear safety authorities.

Report: https://etc.bellona.org/publication/znnp-seising-radiation-risks/

Rosatom During the War: How Militarization of the Russian Nuclear Giant Took Place

This report examines how Rosatom has increasingly become an instrument of Russian state power and wartime policy. Bellona traces the corporation’s growing role in occupied Ukraine, Russia’s wartime economy, and the country’s broader geopolitical strategy.

Report: https://etc.bellona.org/publication/rosatom-during-the-war/

Rosatom’s Role in the War in Ukraine

Published during the first months of the invasion, this Bellona working paper was among the earliest analyses to argue that Rosatom could no longer be viewed solely as a civilian nuclear corporation. Many of the concerns raised in this early study have since become central to international discussions about sanctions, nuclear security, and Rosatom’s role in Russia’s wartime strategy.

Report: https://etc.bellona.org/publication/rosatom-s-role-in-the-war-in-ukraine/

Eliminating Russia’s Nuclear Legacy

For decades, Bellona has been at the forefront of efforts to address the dangerous nuclear legacy left behind by the Soviet Union. This report examines what has been achieved, what remains undone, and how the war in Ukraine and the collapse of international cooperation have complicated the task of reducing long-term nuclear risks.

Report: https://etc.bellona.org/publication/eliminating-russia-s-nuclear-legacy/

Rosatom in the War Years of 2023 and 2024

This report explores Rosatom’s growing role in Russia’s wartime economy, its expanding military activities, and its continuing international reach despite sanctions and political isolation. It demonstrates how Rosatom has become one of the Kremlin’s most important strategic assets.

Report: https://etc.bellona.org/publication/rosatom-in-the-war-years/

The post Why Bellona Matters appeared first on Bellona.org.

MEDIA ADVISORY

For Immediate Release

End the Genocide Chokehold

We can’t address the climate crisis without ending fossil-fuelled violence

Bonn, Germany— On Monday, the next round of UN climate talks commence in Bonn, Germany. Over the next two weeks, inside the halls of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) governments from around the world will gather to negotiate the next phase of Paris Agreement implementation and a variety of key issues such as climate finance and operationalising a just transition. Outside these halls, fossil-fuelled militarisation and violence is spurring genocide of the Palestinian people and destruction of their homeland. The same industries and Global North countries that dispossess Palestinian communities are the same actors that displace Indigenous Peoples, destroy forests, expand fossil fuel extraction and sacrifice communities across the Global South in the pursuit of profit and geopolitical power. 

Any serious discussion of climate action must confront the fossil-fuelled wars and genocides that drive emissions while destroying the land, water and lives of frontline communities. This is why Palestinian and global civil society, the Global Energy Embargo for Palestine and the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice are calling on governments to act. The International Court of Justice has declared Israel’s occupation illegal — yet fossil fuel transfers sustaining these crimes continue with impunity. Dockworkers, oil unions and mining communities are already refusing to handle these cargoes. Now we need governments to urgently advance the following:

1. Energy embargo — Cease fossil fuel transfers sustaining genocide and war crimes
2. Supply-chain accountability — Enforceable transparency and public shipment tracking
3. Worker protection — Legal guarantees for workers refusing atrocity-linked cargoes
4. Energy sovereignty — Colonised peoples must control their own energy resources
5. Community consent — FPIC must be legally binding, not procedural fiction
6. Demilitarisation — Military emissions must enter climate governance frameworks

Join Palestinian activists, climate campaigners, the Global Energy Embargo for Palestine and members of the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice (DCJ) as the Bonn climate talks kick off to hear more about what can be done here in Bonn to advance climate justice and Palestinian liberation.

WHEN: Monday 8 June 2026, 11-11.30 CEST (UTC + 2) 

WHERE: Nairobi 4, Main building, Inside the World Conference Center and webcast here

WITH: 

• Haneen Shaheen, MenaFem
• María Reyes, Mesoamerican Caravan
• Celine Isimbi, Palestinian Institute for Climate Strategy
• Ana Sánchez, Global Energy Embargo for Palestine
• Moderated by Rachitaa Gupta, Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice

CONTACT:dcj.comms@demandclimatejustice.org

The post Media Advisory: End the Genocide Chokehold appeared first on Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice.

This post first appeared on 350Pacific.org.

When Fijians received news of increased fuel prices due to the war in West Asia, scores of everyday people lined up to secure fuel supplies for transport, outdoor cooking stoves, and diesel generators. Families began budgeting for the sharp increase in groceries and public transportation, tour operators planned for a rise in operating cost, sugarcane farmers projected heavier workloads, and communities in remote island areas began to suffer higher boat fares.

The impact of volatile fossil fuel markets has cascaded down onto everyday people who are already living on the frontlines of intensifying climate impacts. One of the most recent impacts seen in Fiji is the announcement of possible “power rationing” by Energy Fiji Limited, due to escalating global fuel prices, increased dependence on thermal generation and worsening dry season conditions.

Access to reliable and safe electricity is essential to community development. It allows students to study when required, fisherfolk to keep their catch fresher for longer, rural homes to access drinking water through water pumps, and communications channels to stay open during emergencies. Renewable energy, particularly rooftop solar, has the potential to address the chasms that fossil-fuel reliance has pushed our people into.

This year, Fiji is one of the Pacific nations chasing an ambitious renewable energy target, despite the Pacific contributing only 0.03% of global emissions. This is aligned with the COP28 pledge to triple renewable energy globally, as well as the recently adopted UN resolution on states legal obligations to climate action.

The just energy transition has never been more timely, not only for climate action but for the growing affordability and energy crises that plague our islands. What many don’t see when reading these headlines are the individuals on the ground, doing their part to ensure these targets are met. Those outside the boardrooms and international negotiations, working both to combat the cost of living crisis and the energy crisis. One such person is Fijian solar energy provider, Pita Tamani.

Pita started as a regular electrician and is now the Founder and Managing Director of Electrify Energy Monkey, a company he started after learning the benefits of solar power as both a source of energy and income for young Fijians.

Pita initially completed his training and worked as an electrician in Nausori for two years, before returning to his village, where he first encountered the ripple effects of renewable energy access.

“I met two men that came to my village to do an inspection for solar energy. They came to inspect a well, where they would eventually design a solar system to run a pump, extract water from the well to a holding tank, and supply several houses close to that well with water,” recalled Pita.

Through the roll-out of renewable energy, communities can go on to power water access, refrigeration, co-op stores and a multitude of other facilities. However, as a practitioner in renewable energy, Pita saw the potential for personal growth as well as community development.

“One of the men that came to install solar in my village told me a story that he had traveled overseas and to a lot of places because of his trade, and he was also an electrician. I asked him if there were any vacancies, and that’s when I first engaged in renewables and solar. I worked for them for three years. Then I got an opportunity to go to Australia. There, I learnt the massive potential for solar energy and all of the things I needed to know as an electrician, and as a solar technician.”

The step from electrician to entrepreneur was driven by Pita’s lived experience as a young Fijian boy watching his mother work to provide better opportunities for him.

“I was raised by a single parent, so I saw the challenges she went through to bring me up, pay my school fees and such. What I saw motivated me to build something of my own and help people from it,” says Pita.

Pita Tamani (foreground), with the team from Electrify Energy Monkey. Source: Electrify Energy Monkey

 

As Fijians feel the pinch of rising costs of living, a future powered by renewable energy has the potential to alleviate much of the strain caused by cost of living crises like the one the Pacific is currently facing.

“I think that sort of financial independence is really important. What we’re doing is giving people energy independence with distributed renewable energy, even if they don’t have access to the grid, “ says Pita.

The benefits of solar energy are not limited to energy access in rural or remote areas disconnected from the national grid. Recent threats to electricity access, caused by global fuel instability, have driven many urban-dwellers to consider the benefits of generating and storing their own renewable energy.

“People are not really aware of the benefits of engaging a solar system nowadays. Not only solar, but any type of renewable energy. Even in urban areas, it’s going to offset their bill. It’s a healthy long-term investment for people living in urban areas because you can get your returns if you sell back to the grid,” said Pita.

When asked if Fiji’s target of 100% renewable energy was achievable, Pita agreed our islands are more than able to move beyond fossil fuels, given that our people are equipped with the expertise and skills to drive the energy transition.

“We can source good materials in the country, but the end result of renewable energy, such as solar, depends on installation. If we don’t have the expertise in this space, then it’s going to take us a long time trying to engage the skill set required to get us to 100% renewable energy. We are headed towards a renewable-driven future but if our technicians are not ready, this future will be delayed. If we are ready for on-the-ground implementation, then we can achieve a Pacific powered by renewables, ” Pita said.

Remote communities, like this village on the island of Moturiki, benefit from distributed renewable energy. Source: Electrify Energy Monkey

 

Despite the potential economic, environmental and social benefits of renewable energy, Pita believes that Fiji and the Pacific require an increase in the technical expertise of renewable energy, and trainings to ensure our people are able to build and manage our own renewable energy infrastructure.

One such effort to equip Pacific communities with the skills needed to generate their own electricity is the Solar Scholars training, scheduled to take place from May 26 – May 29 in Nadi, Fiji.

Fifteen community leaders from around the Pacific will learn to assemble solar PV systems that will be used to power basic services, reducing the strain of rising fuel costs and providing emergency energy during power outages. In a training organised by 350.org Pacific and the Institute of Climate and Sustainable Cities (ICSC), participants from Fiji, Tuvalu and Vanuatu will join the Solar Scholars program, and assist with two community solar installations in Yavulo Village and Lautoka City.

Pacific Climate Warriors in the 2021 Solar Scholars training.

 

350.org Pacific and Caribbean Program Lead, Fenton Lutunatabua, stressed the importance of energy democracy and community-centered solutions in a time where fossil fuel companies continue to profit from war-driven price hikes.

“Everyone deserves access to energy to light their homes, to contact their loved ones, to store their food, and to maintain a life of dignity. Just as everyone also deserves a safe and livable future, beyond the devastation of compounding climate disasters,” said Fenton.

“When renewable energy is prioritised and distributed, we move one step closer to a Pacific beyond fossil fuels, a Pacific that stands a better chance of surviving this affordability crisis. When young people are given the skills to better their communities, we make leaps towards a thriving generation of leaders for our region.”

The training will be conducted by the RE-Charge Pilipinas Team of ICSC, who launched the Solar Scholars initiative in 2015 after Super Typhoon Haiyan struck the Eastern Visayas in the Philippines. This pioneered the creation of the Solar TekPak and community solar photovoltaic (PV) system that could be used to power emergency services in cyclone-prone island communities.

You can follow the journey of the Pacific’s newest Solar Scholars here.

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Why factory farms are a major threat to food safety Anthony Lacey June 5, 2026

Every week, federal investigators track between 17 and 36 foodborne illness outbreaks that can cause extreme sickness and even death. Industrial livestock farming, also known as factory farming, is a main cause.

In 2019, the most recent year with complete data, the U.S. saw almost 10 million cases of foodborne illnesses, including almost 1,000 deaths, from E. coli, salmonella and other bacteria, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

The harmful bacteria can contaminate raw produce like cantaloupe, lettuce, and onions or more highly processed foods like meat, poultry and ice cream.

One cause is the way large factory farms operate, including their management of the waste they generate, says the Food and Drug Administration.

Livestock waste can harbor many different types of bacteria, including a strain of E. coli that is particularly dangerous for humans. When bacteria from animal waste contaminate nearby fruit and vegetable crops, the people who eat them can get seriously sick. 

Bacteria in wildlife waste and human waste sludge can also contaminate food. 

Stronger FDA policies could reduce the number of foodborne illness outbreaks and better protect the health of us all. 

Animal waste is more than a nuisance

Factory farms are large, concentrated facilities and feedlots that produce livestock for meat, eggs and dairy products. 

In the U.S., over 90% of farm animals are raised in these facilities. If you have eaten meat in this country, you’ve almost certainly consumed some from a factory farm. Hundreds, sometimes thousands, of cattle, swine, chickens, turkeys and other animals are raised in large buildings called barns, or open feedlots for cattle.

Lots of animals produce lots of manure. EWG found in 2020 that the animals in Iowa’s largest livestock facilities alone produced nearly 70 times the amount of fecal waste Iowa’s entire 3 million human population generated in the same period. 

That waste is more than an inconvenience. It contains hormones, heavy metals and bacteria, including fecal coliform, E. coli, salmonella and listeria. It can also contain pathogens like giardia and pharmaceuticals such as antibiotics.

How factory farms can cause foodborne illness

There are two main ways bacteria from factory farms ends up on the fruits and vegetables we eat. 

First, manure can contaminate the irrigation canals that run past feedlots, either by washing directly into the water or by blowing in contaminated dust particles from the feedlot through the air. 

Without knowing whether the water is contaminated, produce farmers use it in the canals to irrigate their crops or mix it with pesticides before spraying it on crops.

Second, bacteria-laden dust from feedlots can drift onto nearby fields and settle directly on crops. Though this pathway seems to be less common, it is especially alarming, because dust particles can travel many miles through the air.

Once harvested, contaminated produce can get shipped almost anywhere in the U.S. and beyond – then sold and eaten.

Deadly E. coli outbreak in Arizona

A striking example of how a factory farm likely triggered a major outbreak: the deadly 2018 E. coli contamination of romaine lettuce from Yuma County, Ariz. Five people died and many more were sickened after eating lettuce grown in the region. 

The FDA found that the E. coli strain that originated on lettuce from 36 fields on 23 farms was also found in an irrigation canal near one cattle feedlot: McElhaney Feedyard, a facility located close to much of Yuma County’s lettuce farmland. 

A pool of cattle manure and wastewater at the feedlot sat within just a few feet of an irrigation canal (represented by the blue line), creating a contamination risk. (See Image 1.) 

Image 1. A manure and wastewater pit that is very close to an irrigation canal at McElhaney Feedyard

Source: EWG, from Department of Agriculture National Agriculture Imagery Program, 2021 imagery

The problem isn’t limited to factory farms in Arizona.

It’s a risk wherever these facilities exist, especially in states that grow much of the produce consumed in the U.S. – like California, where farmers cultivate more than one-third of the nation’s vegetables and three-fourths of its fruit. 

A recent EWG analysis found that 42% of California’s large factory farms are located within a quarter-mile of a waterway commonly used for irrigation. Some are only feet away. One cattle feedlot was situated just 35 feet from a canal. 

What the FDA can do to make food safer

Protecting yourself is harder than it sounds. Bacteria can contaminate both organic and conventionally grown produce. And studies show that washing lettuce, for example, does not significantly reduce E. coli – so even careful consumers can still get sick.

That’s why it’s so important for the FDA to protect people from bacterial outbreaks on food.

A practical first step would be to require tests of irrigation water to catch harmful bacteria and prevent it from getting onto crops.

After a series of E. coli outbreaks linked to leafy greens in the early 2000s, the FDA was required to set water safety standards for farms. While these rules, finalized in 2024, require farmers to assess the risks to their irrigation water, they don’t mandate water testing. This gap in oversight leaves farmers to mitigate their risk themselves.  

Other federal agencies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency, could also more rigorously monitor farm manure management.

Foodborne illness is not inevitable. It’s a public health problem the FDA and EPA have the tools to address, preventing millions of illnesses and saving lives.

Areas of Focus Food & Water Farming & Agriculture Factory Farms Farm Pollution California Midwest Authors Anne Schechinger Sarah Reinhardt, MPH, RDN June 9, 2026

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