G1. Progressive Green

We are excited to share with you a new toolkit for civil society produced by our allies at HOME Alliance that unpacks the realities of land-based geoengineering.

As the climate crisis intensifies, dangerous distractions and false solutions are gaining ground. Land-based geoengineering schemes are increasingly being promoted as a “solution,” but behind these lie serious risks to ecosystems, communities, biodiversity, and climate justice.

Read in the newly launched toolkit:

• What these technologies are
• The environmental and social risks they pose
• The projects and actors driving their expansion
• Why these approaches threaten real climate solutions

At a time when urgent, just, and proven climate action is needed, geoengineering deflects and misdirects attention from real solutions and shifts attention away from phasing out fossil fuels and systemic change.

This toolkit is designed for climate justice groups or civil society networks, campaigners, activists, and researchers. It brings together critical analysis, accessible explanations, and evidence to support resistance against risky technological schemes.

Download and share the toolkit: https://tinyurl.com/landGEtoolkit

Read previously launched geoengineering, marine, and solar geoengineering toolkits here.

What can you do to support?

• Keep learning: Stay informed about geoengineering and its developments to build a critical understanding.
• Take a stand: Include the rejection of geoengineering and support for resistance efforts in your campaigns and advocacy.
• Spread the word: Share this toolkit within your networks. Geoengineers often erase & trivialise critical civil society perspectives.
• Endorse the manifesto: Become a signatory to  the HOME Alliance manifesto, rejecting geoengineering

The US Constitution Betrayed the Revolution is the fourth video in our America 250: A Revolutionary Perspective series. In 2026 we are being called to celebrate something that didn't happen 250 years ago. 

The post What is America 250: The US Constitution Betrayed the Revolution appeared first on CELDF - Community Rights Pioneers - Protecting Nature and Communities.

Socio-ecological Transition: Rooted in Resistance HOMEF, Nigeria

What does transition truly mean when the word has been hijacked by the very forces destroying the planet? What does justice look like for a people whose land is still poisoned, whose heroes were martyred, and whose struggle the government wants to bury under fresh oil wells? And when dysfunction becomes so normalised that we can no longer see it clearly, what do we call it, and what do we do about it?

HOMEF reflects…

HOMEF’s Word of the Month is “Transition”.

Transition describes the process of moving from one system, state, or set of conditions to another, and in the environmental context, it is one of the most contested words of our time.
At its most urgent, ‘transition’ refers to the shift away from fossil fuel dependence toward energy systems that do not cook the planet, poison communities, or fund the wars of extractive empires. But we must understand that ‘transition’ is not simply a technical or infrastructural project, but rather a political one. The question is never only what we are transitioning to, but who decides, who benefits, and who bears the cost.

But the word has been captured by corporations that built their fortunes on extraction, and they now deploy “transition” as a branding exercise: offering carbon credits, false solutions, and green-painted versions of the same destructive logic. A “just transition” in their hands becomes a managed handover that preserves existing power structures while communities continue to suffer the consequences of decades of ecological destruction without remedy or reparation.

But a genuine transition is far more radical than whatever they propose. It demands the restoration of community sovereignty over land, seeds, water, and energy. It requires the recognition that the Global South did not create this crisis and cannot be asked to absorb its costs. It insists that transition must be rooted in indigenous knowledge, ecological integrity, and the rights of nature.

Transition is not a destination, but a direction. And the path there must be walked by the people most affected, on their own terms, and at a pace that leaves no one behind.

 

 

PRESS CONTACT: Hannah Lawrence, +436706504192, press@stay-grounded.org 29th April 2026 – 95+ groups, including Extinction Rebellion, Friends of the Earth and Scientist Rebellion, today launched a manifesto demanding a sharp reduction of aviation to halt climate collapse. The manifesto, “A Red Line for Airports”, signed by groups from 25 countries worldwide, and coordinated by the Stay…

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EWG testimony before the Health Subcommittee of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce on Healthier America: Legislative Proposals on the Regulation and Oversight of Food Iris Myers April 28, 2026

Thank you for the opportunity to testify. 

My name is Scott Faber, and I am the senior vice president for government affairs for the Environmental Working Group, a national nonprofit environmental health organization. I am also an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center, where I teach food and farm law. Prior to joining EWG, I was the vice president for federal affairs for the Consumer Brands Association, formerly known as the Grocery Manufacturers Association.

Thank you for holding today’s hearing on legislative proposals to address food policy. Food that is safe, affordable and healthy, and that is produced in ways that reflect America’s shared values, is not a partisan issue. All Americans, regardless of party, want our food to be safe, affordable and healthy.

Many of our food and farm laws have not been updated in decades, or are not being implemented in ways that reflect our shared commitment to safe, affordable, healthy food.

Many Americans simply lack access to healthier foods. 

Diet-related disease is now our leading cause of death, surpassing smoking, as consumers struggle to distinguish between ultra-processed food, and healthier processed foods. 

And every year, thousands of us are sickened by pathogens, and hundreds die. Too many of us eat food that is contaminated with toxic metals or contaminants like PFAS. Too many of us eat food that contains food additives and substances that have been linked to serious health harms, including cancer.

In particular, nearly 99% of new food chemicals have, since 2000, been approved for safety by food chemical companies, not the Food and Drug Administration. And the FDA rarely reconsiders the safety of the thousands of chemicals we’re already eating. Many of these new chemicals were added to our food without the FDA’s knowledge. 

In the absence of federal action, our states have played an important complementary role, by phasing out the most troubling food chemicals, especially from school foods. Arizona, California, Delaware, Louisiana, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia and West Virginia are protecting our children from chemicals of concern in school foods.

Many of the bills that are the subject of today’s hearing would help make our food safer and healthier by:

• updating food labels
• banning chemicals of concern
• alerting consumers to hidden threats
• ending deceptive practices
• reducing heavy metal contamination, especially in baby and toddler food
• modernizing how we review food chemicals. 

To ensure the safety of our food, Congress should require that all new food chemicals be approved for safety by the FDA, not food chemical companies, and should direct the FDA to reconsider the safety of the chemicals we’re already eating, starting with food chemicals linked to cancer and other serious health harms. Chemicals that pose serious risks, like cancer, should not be in food, let alone considered “generally recognized as safe,” and should be quickly removed from our food. 

Food chemical assessments should be based on publicly available, scientific studies, and consumers should have the chance to share their views and receive a response from the FDA.

Congress should ensure that the FDA has the culture and clear deadlines needed to restore consumer confidence in the safety of food chemicals. Congress should also ensure that baby and toddler food is safe. Recent food safety failures and investigations have underscored the need to increase tests for more pathogens and immediately report the results, and to set and enforce tough standards for neurotoxic heavy metals like lead. 

To meet these responsibilities, Congress should allow the FDA to assess fees on chemical and food companies to ensure the FDA has the resources to be a full partner with our states.

Congress should not, as proposed by a bill under consideration at this hearing, make our broken food chemical safety system even worse by allowing food chemical companies to bypass FDA review altogether and instead allowing industry-funded panels of industry insiders to approve new food chemicals that can be immediately added to food.

Congress should not, as proposed, reduce the amount of information about new chemicals that must be submitted to the FDA. Nor should it allow a new chemical to be added to food without a thorough review and presume it to be safe just because the FDA has missed an artificial deadline. 

Congress should not, as proposed, weaken longstanding legal standards, allow hundreds of food additives and substances to escape FDA review through legal redefinitions, simply declare that all the substances now allowed in food are “safe,” or allow the chemical industry to decide whether new uses of chemicals are not “substantial” enough to require FDA review. Congress should not further delay standards for heavy metals in baby food.

Most importantly, Congress should not, as proposed, block states from providing important protections, especially when the FDA fails to protect us. State and local governments are partners critical to the FDA, inspecting food manufacturing facilities, ensuring our restaurants are safe, protecting us from toxic chemicals and contaminants in our food, enforcing food safety laws, and responding quickly when pathogens threaten our health. 

Our states are part of the solution, not the problem. 

Safer food starts with tougher standards and safeguards implemented by trusted, unbiased experts, not by industry-funded panels and secret studies. To help consumers identify healthier foods, we must make our labels clearer and expand access to healthier options. Processed foods can be part of a healthy diet, and many processed foods are healthier foods: low in added sugar, saturated fat and sodium – and free from dodgy additives. 

Congress should make it easier for busy consumers to find these healthier foods at glance.

Reforms that make our food safer and healthier will not increase the price of food. The same foods are being made in other nations without chemicals of concern or misleading labels and cost the same amount. Many factors impact the price of food – including the cost of labor, energy, transportation and marketing – but replacing a toxic chemical with a safe alternative or changing a label to help busy shoppers is not one of them.

Food manufacturers have thousands of additives and substances at their disposal, so banning a handful linked to cancer or other health harms will not increase the cost of food. By contrast, the cost of inaction – rising health care costs caused by poor diets and lost productivity due to foodborne illness – is significant and growing. 

In the absence of federal action, our states are working together to reduce the presence of ultra-processed food in our schools and to identify and address chemicals of concern that are banned elsewhere and excluded from identical products offered by the same food companies at the same cost.

I work with state and local legislators every day. Many of you were state and local legislators. We know state and local legislators are thoughtful, dedicated public servants who want what we all want: safe, healthy and affordable food. Until the FDA is doing its part, state and local legislators simply want the ability to keep us safe.

Thank you for the opportunity to testify. I am grateful this committee has chosen to hold this hearing at a moment when food policy is on the minds of so many consumers.

Areas of Focus Food & Water Food Ultra-Processed Foods Toxic Chemicals Food Chemicals California Press Contact Iris Myers iris@ewg.org (202) 939-9126 April 29, 2026

Is Premier Danielle Smith betraying her base? Her United Conservative Party (UCP) swept almost every riding outside of Calgary and Edmonton in the last election but the love does not seem to be mutual.

Smith is bulldozing the interests of small town property owners as she plows forward with aggressive plans to attract $100 billion in private sector investment for gas-fired AI data centres despite the concerns of nearby residents.

There are over 40 data centres proposed for construction in Alberta. Often opposed by local residents, these enormous installations create few jobs and require vast amounts of electricity and water – two commodities in limited supply in the province.

Important issues like carbon emissions, water availability, and noise pollution would normally be considered through a provincial environmental assessment process. However, Smith’s government has been excluding large data centre proposals from such routine oversight, including the “Wonder Valley” project shilled by celebrity investor Kevin O’Leary.

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The citizens of Olds, Alberta, were alarmed to learn that what could be the largest data centre in the country accompanied by the second largest power generation facility in the province was slated to start construction inside their town boundaries within two months, and without an environmental assessment.

The acting approvals manager of the Alberta Ministry of Environment and Protected Areas assured the proponent Synapse Real Estate Corp., “I have decided that further assessment of the activity is not required. Therefore, a screening report will not be prepared and an environmental impact assessment report is not required.”

Residents of Olds were not so assured, learning of the plan in late January just days before an open house meeting on February 4. Synapse proposed breaking ground in March. Many homes are within less than one kilometre of the proposed two million square foot facility that would run 24 hours a day, requiring natural gas turbines generating 1.4 GW of power and 600 backup diesel generators. As one anti-data centre post on Facebook noted, good neighbours avoid “humming at 90 decibels in your backyard at 3:00 AM”. 

The previously quiet town of 10,000 residents may soon sport 17 metre-high flare stacks from ten massive gas turbines producing as much power as is consumed by the entire city of Edmonton. While the original proposal from Synapse was rejected by the Alberta Utility Commission (AUC) for numerous deficiencies in public consultation, revised documents were resubmitted within a month.

Does Danielle Smith’s government plan to intervene on behalf of concerned citizens? Nope. Alberta’s Minister of Technology and Innovation Nate Glubish washed his hands of responsibility, relating to CBC News that “he can’t endorse, approve or deny a project as minister — that’s the regulator’s job.”

Glubish instead spun the botched initial application to AUC as a positive development. “All data centre projects with power generation must get Alberta Utilities Commission regulatory approval to proceed. Synapse’s first application was inadequate and thus did not proceed. This is evidence of the process working,” Glubish told CBC in a written statement.

The stampede of server farm proposals encouraged by the UCP would collectively consume almost the entire capacity of Alberta electrical grid, so Smith’s government is encouraging data centre companies to “bring their own energy”. This means burning enormous amounts of natural gas, a strategy that dovetails with her plans to double Alberta’s oil and gas production. 

When asked about the climate impacts of scaling up $100 billion in gas-fired AI data centres, Glubish enthused, “this is good news for Alberta because it’s going to create significantly increased drilling, exploration, and production activity in rural Alberta, it’s going to allow for increased distribution investment to get the gas to the different markets that need it, and it’s going to generate significant incremental natural gas royalty revenues for the benefit of all Albertans.” 

The baked-in bias of Smith’s alleged “free-market” government toward fossil fuels stands in stark contrast to her hands-on hostility towards the renewable energy sector. In 2023, Smith announced a surprise seven-month moratorium on wind and solar approvals in 2023, throwing $33 billion in renewable investments into limbo. Onerous land use restrictions and reclamation requirements further decimated the sector, resulting in a 93 percent decline in wind and solar installations in two years. 

Proponents pitching turbine-fired data centres instead enjoy what the gas-loving Smith government fawningly calls their “concierge program”. Companies proposing an AI server farm within municipal boundaries are publicly promised that allegedly impartial regulators will “streamline pathways to partnerships, leveraging existing infrastructure and expertise to deliver unparalleled speed to market.”  

This cozy accommodation of companies over the interests of rural Albertans does not bode well for those unexpectedly living next to a massive new data centre.

Danielle Smith has built a political career as a supposed champion of rural Albertans. Many of these non-urban voters are now learning the hard way that her true allegiance has always been the oil and gas industry.   

The post Danielle Smith Is Betraying Rural Alberta To Build Gas-Powered Data Centres appeared first on DeSmog.

A LIVE STREAM Conversation with Keala Kelly (Kānaka Maoli) and Dina Gilio-Whitaker (Colville Confederated Tribes) as part of our America 250: A Revolutionary Perspective series.

The post JOIN CELDF LIVE ON MAY 7TH at 4pm ET! – Discussion on Systemic Racism, Sexism, Culturecide and Genocide from America’s Beginning appeared first on CELDF - Community Rights Pioneers - Protecting Nature and Communities.

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The post Tell Wells Fargo: Stop the Racist Lending + Environmental Racism! appeared first on Stop the Money Pipeline.

A major right-wing political funder has dramatically increased his fossil fuel investments this year, DeSmog can reveal.

Jeremy Hosking, who owns the hedge fund Hosking Partners, donated £1.7 million to Reform UK between 2019 and 2024. The party, led by Nigel Farage, campaigns to scrap the UK’s flagship 2050 net zero emissions target, remove environmental protections, and turbocharge new fossil fuel extraction.

Hosking also owns The Critic magazine, which frequently attacks climate policies and supports new North Sea oil and gas exploration. Its current edition carries a cover story titled “The Green Myth: Fossil Fuels are Britain’s Real Energy Source”.

DeSmog’s analysis of the latest U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings from Hosking Partners reveals that it held $440.8 million (around £326.5 million) worth of stock in oil, gas, and coal companies as of the end of March 2026.

The filing, which covers the first quarter of the year, shows an increase of more than $154 million (£114 million) since the previous entry – up by 53.8 percent.

“This exposé highlights the urgent need for an honest debate about the fossil fuel industry’s toxic influence over our media,” said Richard Wilson of the campaign group Stop Funding Heat.

“Thanks to DeSmog, we already knew that GB News is co-owned by a fossil-fuelled billionaire, and that the Daily Mail’s parent company makes millions running oil and gas conferences. Now we learn that yet another outlet which regularly attacks climate action is similarly compromised.”

He added: “Democracy depends on having a media that tells the truth without fear or favour, not one beholden to special interests.”

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The U.S.-Israeli war in Iran – which began in late February – has disrupted global supply chains for consumer goods, and major commodities including fossil fuels.

It has also delivered windfall profits to the world’s biggest oil and gas companies, with the top 100 making $23 billion (almost £17 billion) in March alone. The oil major BP today announced £2.4 billion in profits for the first quarter of this year – up 130 percent from the same period last year.

Although it’s unknown if Hosking Partners increased its fossil fuel investments in response to the Iran war, the firm has stood to benefit from its expanded oil and gas holdings.

The hedge fund has $369.7 million (around £273.7 million) invested in oil and gas. This includes $34.7 million (£25.6 million) in ConocoPhillips, $8.4 million (£6.2 million) in ExxonMobil, and $7.9 million (£5.8 million) in Chevron.

Shares in ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil soared by 41 percent in the first quarter of this year, while Chevron’s share price rose by 35.7 percent.

Hosking’s firm also has $71 million (around £52.6 million) invested in coal companies: $61 million (£45 million) in Warrior Met Coal, $7 million (£5 million) in Core Natural Resources, and $2.7 million (£1.9 million) in Peabody Energy.

Hosking did not respond to our request for comment but previously told DeSmog: “I do not have millions in fossil fuels; it is the clients of Hosking Partners who are the beneficiaries of these investments.”

Farage Funding

Hosking has used his wealth to support right-wing political projects – including parties that campaign for new fossil fuel extraction and against clean energy development.

He donated more than £1.7 million to Reform over a four-year period, including £125,000 before the 2024 general election.

Reform has led the charge against the UK’s net zero targets, calling for new fossil fuel extraction, including North Sea exploration and the reopening of coal power plants. It also campaigns for state renewable energy investment to be scrapped, and has used the Iran war to double-down on its pro-oil policies, pledging to extract “every last drop” of oil and gas out of the North Sea.

The party – leading in UK-wide polls and expected to gain ground in this year’s May elections across Britain – has also promoted climate science denial. Farage has claimed it’s “absolutely nuts” for CO2 to be considered a pollutant, despite admitting: “I can’t tell you whether CO2 is leading to warming or not”.

In reality, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has said it is “unequivocal” that human influence has caused “unprecedented” global warming.

And while Reform has claimed that the UK’s climate policies are “economic suicide”, a report by the New Economics Foundation concluded that the party’s anti-renewables agenda could cost 60,000 jobs and wipe £92 billion off the economy.

In March, the independent Climate Change Committee said the entire cost of cutting emissions to net zero by 2050 would be less than a single fossil fuel price shock – two of which have been experienced by the UK in the past five years.

Hosking has also donated £4.3 million since 2019 to the Reclaim Party, led by radical right-wing commentator and former actor Laurence Fox. The party, which has a minimal electoral presence, claims “there is no climate emergency”, wants to ditch net zero, and frack for shale gas.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage.

Credit: Associated Press / Alamy Stock Photo / Alastair Grant Pro-Oil Coverage

Hosking’s magazine The Critic routinely dismisses the need to switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy.

Its current cover story is written by contributing editor Chris Bayliss, who argues that renewable energy is unreliable and expensive. In a follow-up piece online, he blames “elite” support for net zero on “climate hysteria”.

Bayliss is a former civil servant who works in the energy sector in Iraq. He’s the Iraq Country Lead for IM Power, which runs liquefied natural gas (LNG), oil and coal power plants, offers “oil and gas refining, storage and pipeline solutions”, and works to “maximise value from hydrocarbon resources”. IM Power also provides renewable energy from solar power, an energy source Bayliss criticises in his articles.

In The Critic, Bayliss cites debunked policy papers authored by individuals and groups with ties to the fossil fuel industry.

His position is endorsed by the magazine. The current edition includes an editorial titled “On a Wind and a Prayer” arguing that “beggaring ourselves will not cool the rest of the planet’s weather”.

The Critic has also run articles by senior figures at the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), the UK’s foremost climate science denial group, which has claimed that carbon dioxide emissions are “a benefit to the planet”.

In February, The Critic ran a piece titled “We Can’t Just Stop Oil: Oil and Gas are inevitable elements of our future” by Kathryn Porter, an oil and gas industry consultant who has authored reports for the GWPF.

In November, the magazine published an article by GWPF head of policy Harry Wilkinson calling for the United Nations COP climate negotiations to “be realistic” and drop its push for “centrally planned decarbonisation”. Wilkinson added that “COP delegates have long demonised fossil fuels as a problem to be expunged, instead of an engine of economic development”.

Wilkinson has long dismissed the threat from climate change, writing in 2018: “A temperature rise of more than two degrees is not inherently dangerous.”

The magazine has also run anti-net zero articles by Craig Mackinlay, a Tory peer and the current director of the GWPF, and similar articles by Steve Baker, a former GWPF director and Tory MP who spoke at a U.S. fundraiser for the group in February.

The Critic and Bayliss were contacted for comment.

The post Reform Donor Expands Fossil Fuel Portfolio to £300 Million appeared first on DeSmog.

Sometimes, years after the seeds are planted you see the results. That was certainly the case with an action that a group of Stay Grounded supporters took part in three years ago against Europe’s largest airshow. Last week they saw a huge win. Here, Sean Currie, explains what we’re celebrating. Three years ago, a group of supporters of Stay Grounded went to Geneva with a plan.

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This virtual training session is designed to equip you with the essential tools and strategies of powerful nonviolent direct action. Whether you consider yourself new to taking action or a seasoned action taker with expertise to share, this webinar will deepen your understanding and sharpen your skills.

The post Register today for CELDF’s Nonviolent Direct Actions Skills with Lina Blount on May 20th from 7 to 9pm ET appeared first on CELDF - Community Rights Pioneers - Protecting Nature and Communities.

Welcome to CELDF’s America 250: A Revolutionary Perspective, an ongoing series this year.

The post CELDF’s What is America 250: A Revolutionary Perspective appeared first on CELDF - Community Rights Pioneers - Protecting Nature and Communities.

“We’re sick and tired of a system in which a few wealthy corporations have the legal right to pollute our water, poison our communities, and destroy the climate,” says chief petitioner Michelle Holman, a resident of Lane County who is also part of the watersheds group. “We’re pushing back. We’re ready for the fight."

The post Press Release: Earth Destroying Corporations Flood Lane County Election with Dark Money appeared first on CELDF - Community Rights Pioneers - Protecting Nature and Communities.

A version of this op-ed was first published in The Moscow Times.

For the past 40 years, the wastes of the Chernobyl site have stood as a monument to human arrogance, the danger of secrets, the plodding ineptitude of repressive regimes, and the catastrophes that occur when they all intersect.  At a remove of four decades—and after the production of an enormous scientific and cultural literature on the disaster—it’s tempting to say we’ve learned our lesson.

The word “Chernobyl” itself has passed into our collective lexicon as synonym for catastrophe, and the UN a decade ago designated April 26—the day in 1986 that Chernobyl’s No 4 reactor exploded—as an international Day of Remembrance, a dark honor that the disaster’s anniversary shares with the likes of the Holocaust and the transatlantic slave trade.

Surely—we terribly wish to say as a civilized society—we’ve put this sort of thing behind us. Right?

A Russian military drone that blew a hole in the dome protecting the world from the No 4 Reactor’s still-highly radioactive entrails suggests otherwise. In fact, as the ruby anniversary of the world’s worst nuclear accident arrives this Sunday, we’re discovering newer ways to endanger nuclear power plants—this time by making them targets of war.

Since its invasion of Ukraine commenced in February of 2022, Moscow’s troops have invaded and attacked the Chernobyl site, bombed a research reactor at Kharkiv’s Institute of Physics and Technology in Ukraine’s east, and taken over Europe’s largest civilian nuclear power plant, the six-reactor Ukrainian facility at Zaporizhzhia, claiming the facility as Russian property.  All the while, Russian supersonic missiles continue to whiz within mere kilometers of not just Chernobyl, but Ukraine’s operating Khmelnitsky nuclear power plant as well.

What’s more, all of this is becoming quite routine. In recent weeks, Washington—the same world capital that was aghast at Russia’s attacks on Ukrainian nuclear facilities—targeted Iran’s Bushehr nuclear plant in an attack of its own. The rest of the world meanwhile is more or less powerless to stop it. Indeed, the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency—with its vague mandate to encourage and oversee the safe and peaceful use of atomic energy—is empowered by its governing body (which includes representatives from Russia and the US) to do little more than be officially horrified. It is a posture that’s’ unequal to what’s at stake.

A view of the New Safe Confinement structure in 2016.

The Chernobyl disaster remains one of the defining moments in the twilight years of the Soviet Union. Moscow sought to obscure the disaster while quietly evacuating more than 116,000 people from the area surrounding the plant in the days after the reactor exploded. It would be Swedish authorities who finally pierced Moscow’s official silence when they announced mysterious spikes in their own radiation monitoring systems. What they detected was a plume of radioactive material ejected into the atmosphere, causing a public health emergency across Europe and leading to a skepticism toward nuclear energy that would last decades.

It was in the long shadow of the catastrophe that the Bellona Foundation was born. Founded in Norway in the years following the disaster, we emerged from a growing recognition that nuclear risks did not respect national borders, and that independent scrutiny of nuclear safety—particularly within the former Soviet Union—was urgently needed. What began as a response to secrecy and contamination in the wake of Chernobyl has since evolved into decades of work tracking nuclear hazards, advocating for transparency and environmental rights—and nearly single-handedly spearheading the cleanup of generations radioactive waste and nuclear hazards in Russia’s northwest.

The human toll of the Chernobyl explosion was likewise obscured. Officially, it stands at 31 dead—a figure many experts say is ludicrously low. In the following years, hundreds of people involved with quelling the disaster’s effects fell ill, and many eventually died. Cancer rates, especially for thyroid cancer, increased in areas heavily exposed to radiation. In later interviews, Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet president on whose watch the Chernobyl accident occurred, would identify the catastrophe as one of the most important factors hastening the Soviet collapse.

Forty years after that calamity, Moscow itself has wrought renewed disaster at Chernobyl. In the opening days of its invasion, Russian troops overran the Exclusion Zone—the 2,6000-square-kilometer area around the plant where radiation levels remain high and public access is limited—where their tanks and transports churned up radioactive dust. Soldiers looted and vandalized workshops necessary to the ongoing decommissioning of not only the No 4 reactor, but the plant’s three remaining reactors as well, the last of which was finally shut down in 2000.

An apartment building in the abandoned city of Pripyat, where Chernobyl’s workers lived, as seen in 2006.

The soldiers dug trenches and set fires in an area known as the Red Forest—a gnarled expanse of irradiated woodland—scorching some 14,000 hectares of land, filling the air with so much radioactive smoke that it was unsafe for firefighters to quell the blazes. Hundreds of Chernobyl workers and technicians who oversee the site’s sprawling network of spent fuel storage facilities and the enormous effort to dismantle the radioactive remnants of the exploded No. 4 reactor, were held hostage onsite.

Looting and petty destruction by Russian troops was general. Computers, dosimeters, lab tools, firefighting equipment and even appliances were stolen. Office doors were ripped off hinges, windows smashed, walls spray-painted with graffiti. Human excrement was left behind on control panels as a calling card.

After a month of marauding—and amid reports of radiation sickness among its troops—Russia abruptly withdrew on March 22, 2022, and, in a bizarrely official ceremony, handed control of the plant back to the Ukrainians. According to the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development, which has financed much of the Chernobyl cleanup work since the original 1986 disaster, the Russian Army’s destructive adventure in the world’s most famous radioactive wasteland left behind some €100 million in damage.

That, however, would not be the end of it. A drone attack on Chernobyl, coming in February of 2025, ruptured the so-called New Safe Confinement, a €1.5 billion dome that has protected the No 4 reactor since 2016. Designed to replace the crumbling concrete sarcophagus poured over the remains of the reactor by Soviet liquidators, the dome houses the still ongoing removal of 200 tons of molten nuclear fuel left inside.

It’s an enormous—and enormously complicated—structure. Standing as tall as a football pitch is long and weighing more than 31,000 tons, the New Safe Confinement is the world’s largest movable object. The sarcophagus it now shelters was never built to last. By the mid-1990s, cracks had opened, leaks had formed, and the whole brittle shell was sagging under its own weight.

To avoid being exposed to radiation, the new dome structure was built about a half a kilometer away from the sarcophagus, then moved into place on rails. In addition to the securing the melted fuel, the structure protects the outside environmental from some 30 tons of highly contaminated dust and 16 tons of uranium and plutonium that continue to release high levels of radiation.

In places, the structure measures about 12 meters between its inner and outer shells, and the space between them is kept at low humidity to prevent corrosion. The outer shell keeps out the elements. The inner shell is designed to contain the radioactive dust inside the structure, especially when the cranes that are set up within it start dismantling the sarcophagus and the damaged reactor before safely disposing of the waste in smaller containers.

Ukrainian specialists overseeing the cleanup had aimed to start that dismantlement stage this year, but the drone attack has made that impossible. According to those Bellona has spoken to, none of that work can move forward until a full repair process has been completed—which is not expected until 2030.

Makeshift repairs, meanwhile, are keeping radioactive dust inside the shelter, and, almost miraculously, no radiation spikes have been recorded since the initial attack. But ongoing Russian strikes around the Chernobyl site continue to threaten the now-enfeebled structure, which the EBRD estimates will cost some €500 million to fully repair.

Naturally, the IAEA has warned again and again against such attacks and wrung its hands over the apparent normalization of military aggression against some of the most sensitive industrial sites constructed by man. But the composition of its board of governors, and its enforced apolitical stance, prevent it from censuring, or even naming, the obvious culprits. Because of this, the international body is little more than a paid mourner at the funeral of the rules-based international order.  From the attacks on Chernobyl, to the seizure of Zaporizhzhia, to the US strike on Bushehr, the agency can do little but express “deep concern.”

This paralysis of deep concern was what we had 40 years ago when a radioactive cloud of hidden origin darkened the skies over Europe and turned hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens into refugees from their own government’s secrets. One would hope that 40 years of staring into the rubble of one of humanity’s biggest mistakes would have brought us more wisdom and enlightenment.

That it hasn’t is partially a failure of collective imagination. After Chernobyl, we thought we’d seen the worst thing that could happen to a nuclear power plant. No one—not world governments, not the designers of Chernobyl’s New Safe Confinement, not the IAEA—ever accounted for deliberate military attacks on civilian nuclear power stations. It was unthinkable.

Now that it’s not, we must work together—NGOs, governments, and people alike—to make it unthinkable again. As an organization, Bellona has proposed beginning the conversation on what, exactly, international oversight for the safety of nuclear power plants should look like. It’s clear that we need a transnational agency that has the authority to do more than offer hopes and prayers when nuclear plants become military targets.

Such a system would have to emerge from the international community itself, but the time for that discussion has clearly arrived. Until it does, however, we’re left exactly where we were in 1986, watching helplessly as disaster unfolds.

The post After Chernobyl we said ‘never again.’ Then came the war. appeared first on Bellona.org.

By Christopher Collins and Mike O’Sullivan

The version of record of this op-ed appeared in Barron's.

Europe has effectively been at war since 2022. Russia’s drones are still flying over European airports, their ships continue to sabotage critical undersea cables, and their cyberattacks across the continent are surging.

Europe still isn’t ready to fight back.

There have been fits and starts of ambitious defense measures: last year, the European Commission sought to mobilize €800 billion under its Readiness 2030 plan, the European Union earmarked €150 billion for the Security Action for Europe, or SAFE, program, and the European Investment Bank (EIB) quadrupled its defense spending to €4 billion. But if Europe is to take full responsibility for its own security—and President Donald Trump is making clear it needs to—what currently exists isn’t enough.

The SAFE program is a demand-side instrument. It helps EU governments borrow to procure defense materials by issuing low-interest, long-maturity loans. It does nothing to promote more supply; SAFE offers no mechanism for guaranteeing commercial bank lending to defense firms, for instance. And the fact that the program is so heavily oversubscribed clearly signals both the demand and the urgency for more help. Meanwhile, the EIB is limited in what it can do by structural constraints: its own policies prevent it from financing weapons and ammunition. As the EIB’s president has rightly said, the bank “is not a defense ministry.”

This is where the proposed Defence, Security and Resilience Bank (DSRB) could come in—not as a rival to the existing European mechanisms, but as a complement that covers the ground they cannot.

The concept of the DSRB was developed by Rob Murray, formerly the head of innovation at NATO, who began working on the idea in 2018. The bank was officially launched last year and is now well beyond the drawing board: major global banks have signed on to help structure the institution, and its backers aim to have it operational by the end of 2026.

It is a straightforward idea: a multilateral bank, owned and overseen by democratic states. The DSRB would raise funds by issuing AAA-rated bonds on global capital markets and would then lend to member governments and guarantee loans made to defense firms by commercial banks. By pooling allied credit strength, these loans would be made at rates most NATO members cannot access on their own and over the long time frames that defense investment demands. Importantly, with the DSRB, there is no joint debt and no shared liability. Each country answers only for its own equity stake, which preserves national control.

The gap the DSRB is best placed to fill is on the supply side, helping companies that develop and build defense equipment access capital. This is especially true for the growth-stage firms across Europe, that are too mature for early-stage venture capital but too small and too risky for conventional bank lending.

Europe has relatively few investment funds that do the type of investing required to scale these companies. And European commercial banks, after years of ESG-driven retreat from the defense sector, lack both the appetite and the internal expertise to lend to these firms without guarantees. A DSRB-backed guarantee structure would address both these issues.

The European capital markets argument also deserves more attention. The EU’s Savings and Investment Union project aims to keep European capital in Europe, channeling it into productive, long-term capital market investments. The DSRB’s AAA-rated bonds would be precisely the kind of high-quality, euro-denominated instrument that a deeper European capital market could absorb, investing European savings into European security. Far from competing with the Savings and Investment Union, the DSRB could become a compelling use-case for the program.

Canada has emerged as a champion of the DSRB. Under Prime Minister Mark Carney — who has made strengthening Canada's strategic autonomy a national priority — Canada has taken a leading role in establishing the bank and hosting meetings with partner countries to begin negotiations on the bank’s charter. Canada has already lined up all of its major banks as partners and the country’s biggest cities are all vying to host the bank’s headquarters.

European defense and finance ministers are more lukewarm.

Germany says it prefers the existing SAFE program. But the DSRB would complement SAFE, not compete with it. Berlin knows this, or at least Deutsche Bank does, given that the German bank is one of the DSRB’s partner institutions. The German government’s current position amounts to telling its country’s flagship lender that it is wrong about how defense should be financed. That is an unusual stance for an export economy that prides itself on listening to industry.

The United Kingdom’s Treasury has said the DSRB would not deliver sufficient value. More than 800 British defense companies have publicly disagreed. The UK says it wants to spend 2.5% of GDP on defense, yet the country faces serious fiscal constraints. A multilateral guarantee structure is precisely the kind of tool that could help square that circle.

With major firms such as Naval Group, Dassault, Thales, and MBDA, France has the strongest defense industrial base in Europe; last year the country became the world's second-largest arms exporter. Yet Paris has barely commented on the DSRB. In diplomacy, that signals internal disagreement or caution.

Perhaps France fears that its strategic autonomy would be weakened by joining a bank that it would only partly own. But joining the DSRB would actually strengthen France’s strategic position by facilitating capital inflows. If Paris doesn’t become involved now, it risks spending the next decade complaining about rules it chose not to shape.

As the joke goes, Europe likes being concerned. The DSRB is a way to translate that concern into action. The countries that join the DSRB now will write the charter, while latecomers will accept terms drafted by others.

Europe’s three largest economies have every reason to be leading voices around this table. After all, the threats driving the DSRB, such as Russian aggression, supply chain fragility, and defense industrial underinvestment, are European problems. Letting Canada solve them isn’t a viable strategy.

Christopher Collins is a fellow with the Polycrisis Program at the Cascade Institute. Mike O’Sullivan is author of ‘The Levelling – what’s next after globalization?’(PublicAffairs), and former CIO at CS Wealth. 

Read the article in Barron's The post Europe Needs to Get Serious About Its Defense. A New Bank Is the Answer. appeared first on Cascade Institute.

By Christopher Collins, Polycrisis Fellow, Cascade Institute

The version of record of this op-ed appeared in The Globe and Mail

Earlier this month, during a panel discussion on the Canadian economy at the Liberal Party convention in Montreal, former Google CFO Patrick Pichette suggested that the government should restrict the ability of young Canadians to work in the United States, because Canadian taxes had funded their education. A clip of these remarks went viral, and for good reason: as Shopify founder Tobi Lütke said in response, “making Canada a cage” is not the right strategy to build a strong economy.

But Mr. Pichette’s remarks highlighted a real anxiety: many of Canada’s most talented young people do leave to work outside the country. I was one of these people: from age 24 to 31, I lived and worked abroad – both in the U.S. and overseas. Many of my friends also fall into this category. Eventually, I came back to Canada, as did some of my friends; others put down roots and stayed in San Francisco, New York, Boston or London. But we all benefited from professional opportunities that did not exist in our home country.

The data show record numbers of people are leaving the country. Many of these are skilled young professionals, and the majority head to the U.S., drawn by greater professional opportunities, deeper networks and higher wages. This has major implications for Canadian businesses and the broader economy; as a trade publication for Canada’s human resources professionals put it last week: “the people leaving are disproportionately the ones your workforce plans were built around.”

One dimension to this story that older Canadians of Mr. Pichette’s vintage often miss is the generational divide in how the U.S. is perceived. While polls show that Canadians overall disapprove of President Donald Trump’s America, that sentiment is strongest among those over 55. This is a global phenomenon; in many countries around the world, adults under 35 hold a more favourable view of the U.S. than those over 50. We should not assume that anti-Trump sentiment is sufficient to keep young talent at home.

Younger Canadians appear to be more willing to hold their nose and move to a country whose politics they dislike if it puts them in a better economic position. This makes sense; people building their careers don’t have as much flexibility as those who’ve already made it. We see a similar dynamic in Canada when it comes to attracting specialized talent to new governmental organizations such as the Major Projects Office – it has been harder to attract the younger professionals still building their careers.

So, what do we do about the brain drain? The instinct behind Mr. Pichette’s idea – wielding the stick – is wrong. In Canada, we don’t restrict interprovincial migration, and no one demands that an engineer trained in Ontario reimburse the province before moving to Alberta. And Canada also benefits from talent trained abroad. For example, the Philippines sends hundreds of thousands of health care workers abroad, including many to Canada; imagine the outcry if Manila tried to prevent them from leaving. The free movement of people is a foundational principle of liberal democracies; restricting it is an admission of policy failure and a concession to complacency.

The answer, then, is to look for carrots. For example, Canada could develop a scholarship model that generously funds graduate education but attaches this funding to a service obligation requiring recipients to work in the country for a defined period. This program could target fields where the brain drain is most acute, from AI research to health care to clean energy.

Finally, it is worth noting that not all emigration is a loss. True, some Canadians who leave will settle permanently abroad. But others will return with skills, networks and capital that benefit Canada enormously. We should want some of our future leaders to have spent their formative years operating in global nerve centres – not punish them for doing so. Perhaps the best example of this is Prime Minister Mark Carney, whose global experience and network from years working in the U.S., Britain and Japan undoubtedly help him navigate our country through an increasingly complex world.

People are rational economic actors, and they go where the opportunities are. This is not just a Canadian story: across the West, record numbers of young professionals are moving abroad. The question Canada should be asking is not how to stop people from leaving, but whether we are building the kind of economy that compels talented people to stay – or return home. Think of it as the Field of Dreams problem: if you build it, they will come.

So let’s focus on building, not caging.

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Introduction

Last year at COP30 in Belem, Brazil, 80 countries around the world reiterated their commitment to transition away from fossil fuels. The First Conference on Transition away from Fossil Fuels being held in Santa Marta, Colombia from 24-29 April is an important and urgent first step in making that commitment from last year a reality. The call to transition away from fossil fuels has become unavoidable. For peoples and communities across the Global South, this is not just a future policy choice but a very urgent question of survival in the present. The Indigenous Peoples, afro-descendants, farmers, peasants, fisherfolk, workers, youth, women, gender diverse, and frontline communities are already living through the impacts of the climate crisis with worsening floods, droughts, hunger, displacement, debt, militarisation, and the destruction of lands, livelihoods, and ecosystems. These communities, who are least responsible for this crisis, have long insisted that there can be no climate justice without ending large scale fossil fuel extraction, production, and consumption.

While the demand to move away from fossil fuels has gained political ground, there has been a consistent and coordinated effort to redefine what that transition entails and looks like. At the very moment when governments should be agreeing to phase out fossil fuels rapidly, equitably, and with public finance and reparations, corporations and many states are pushing a different agenda. Fossil fuels are not truly being phased out, but extended through offsets, carbon capture, false finance, and large-scale “green” projects that continue to reproduce extraction and dispossession.

It is important that the first global conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels does not become another forum where governments and corporations adopt the language of transition while protecting the systems that created the crisis. It must instead draw a firm political line that there can be no real transition away from fossil fuels if false solutions continue to dominate the agenda.

What do we mean by False Solutions?

False solutions are policies, technologies, market instruments, and investment models that claim to address the climate crisis while allowing fossil fuel extraction, corporate power, and existing extractive and economic models to continue unfettered. Instead of confronting the root causes of the crisis like reducing emissions at source at the speed and scale required and redistribution of wealth, power, or responsibility, false solutions create new opportunities for profit and extraction and control over land, labour, and nature to continue.

These false solutions include carbon markets and offsets, carbon capture and storage, so-called “abated” fossil fuels, geoengineering, net-zero accounting tricks, the commodification of forests and ecosystems through market-based “nature” schemes, and fossil gas being reframed as a transition fuel. They also include large-scale, corporate-controlled renewable energy projects when these are imposed through land grabbing, enclosure, debt dependence, ecological destruction, and centralised corporate control rather than democratic public planning and community self-determination. When “green” energy expansion reproduces extractivism, land grab and displacement and reinforcement of inequality, it becomes another false solution rather than a pathway to justice.

Why False Solutions Are a Real Barrier to Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels

False solutions do not exist in fringes but are central to any discussion that is looking to define just transition away from fossil fuels. They are an active barrier to transitioning away from fossil fuels because they delay phase-out, redirect finance, deepen structural inequality, and reinforce the extractive economic models most responsible for the current crisis.

Carbon capture, offsets, and “abated fossil fuels” are increasingly used to justify new oil and gas projects, new infrastructure, and continued investment in fossil energy. They are often used as loopholes by governments and companies to avoid real emissions cuts. They provide cover for big polluters to continue polluting, and come with devastating impacts on communities and ecosystems. In past decades, climate policy discussions have actively led to legitimising carbon based approaches as a mode to reduce emissions, especially Article 6 of the Paris Agreement which has opened the door for countries to participate in various forms of carbon markets.

False solutions allow the Global North to continue consumption of fossil fuels and to continue emitting, while outsourcing the social, ecological, and territorial costs of “transition” to the Global South. Forest and land-based offsets, or nature-based solutions (NBS) rely on the idea that the continued pollution of wealthy countries and corporations can be mitigated by controlling forests, farms, coastlines, and territories elsewhere, especially in the Global South.

However, considerable research in the past few years has consistently shown the failure of markets based approaches in actual emission reduction. Corporate Accountability’s 2025 report, Built to Fail, found that in 2024 roughly 207.8 million offset credits were retired through the voluntary carbon market and that the largest 100 projects accounted for about half of that volume. Its review of major projects with publicly available ratings found that many high-volume projects had only low, moderately low, or very low likelihood of delivering the claimed climate benefit, including renewable energy, hydropower, wind, solar, cookstove, and forest carbon projects. It shows how the voluntary carbon market is saturated with projects whose emissions claims are not only weak but deeply questionable.

NBS are another group of false solutions that enable rich countries to keep on profiting at the expense of people and the planet. It provides cover for Big Polluters to continue emitting whilst appropriating vast amounts of land, often disregarding  Indigenous and Human rights. NBS poses a significant threat to our climate as well as food sovereignty, agroecology, and land rights across the world. Similarly, REDD+ and related schemes commodify land, forests and our commons, while giving the developed countries a way out of their obligations. REDD+ was pushed by the Global North rather than originating from Indigenous Peoples, custodians and protectors of forests, or Global South countries.

This is precisely why market based approaches, policies that commodify our lands, forests, oceans, and our commons are not the legitimate solutions to transitioning away from fossil fuels as positioned by the big polluters, but in fact are a structural barrier. They play a destructive role by transforming the urgent political task of keeping fossil fuels in the ground into an accounting exercise through which polluters can continue polluting as long as their burden can be shifted elsewhere.

Role of False Solutions in Deepening Debt Crisis and Injustices in the Global South

False solutions are barriers because they displace the wider transformation that is actually needed, especially because they tend to centre private finance, blended finance, carbon revenues, and speculative markets.

In recent years, Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) have also played a significant role in financing false solutions. MDBs claim alignment with the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals but their recent energy investments show a troubling pattern: Public finance continues to flow to large-scale, centralised, high-risk projects, with no consideration of social and environmental protections. These kinds of projects, including large hydropower, industrial biofuels, nuclear, carbon capture and storage (CCS), ‘blue’ and ‘green’ hydrogen for export, waste-to-energy, fossil gas, and carbon markets, are false solutions to the climate crisis.

False solutions have been known to fail at a policy level because they deepen injustices through interconnected systems of oppression. They threaten Indigenous Peoples’ rights and territorial sovereignty by treating land and nature as carbon sinks or energy zones rather than living territories. They undermine food sovereignty by converting land for offset plantations, bioenergy, mining, and large-scale renewable projects instead of supporting agroecology and local food systems. These false solutions often deepen the unpaid and invisible labour of women and carer-givers, who absorb the social and economic impacts of displacement and ecological damage. Transitions that centre these false solutions further harm workers because they are often shaped by corporate interests rather than public planning, labour rights, and social protection. They reinforce racism, casteism, patriarchy, colonialism, and class inequality by concentrating the costs of transition on those already marginalised.

Hence, any pathway to just transition away from fossil fuels needs to look beyond the issue of energy. This matters because a just transition must address not only how energy is produced, but also how societies are organised. It must transform food and agrosystems rather than sacrificing land to offsets and industrial bioenergy. It requires transformation of economic and trade systems over preserving export dependence and investor rights. It must centre care economies and public services rather than intensifying the unpaid labour that women and communities already shoulder when crises deepen and more importantly it must protect land, Indigenous sovereignty, labour rights, and gender justice as core transition principles and not as secondary safeguards.

What DCJ Demands from the Santa Marta Conference

Real, proven, community-centered, cost effective solutions to justly address the climate crisis are increasingly being swept aside in favor of industry-basked, risky, expensive, and harm-inducing false solutions. They are not a bridge to a just transition but one of the main barriers standing in its way. They promise action while entrenching inaction and speak the language of transition while blocking real peoples led solutions proven to fight the climate crisis effectively. Climate justice begins with ending financing for and promotion of false solutions. DCJ calls for a transition away from fossil fuels that is real, just, equitable, and rooted in peoples’ rights. This requires rejecting false solutions and advancing real, transformative alternatives.

We demand:

1. An immediate end to fossil fuel expansion led by the Global North countries: No new coal, oil, or gas projects, infrastructure, or public support for the same, especially in Global North countries

2. A full rejection of false solutions: No carbon markets, offsets, geoengineering, carbon capture and storage as a license to continue extraction, nature commodification, or “abated fossil fuels.” No large-scale renewable energy projects that drive land grabs, displacement, and corporate control

3. A just and equitable phase-out led by historical responsibility: Global North countries must phase out first and fastest, reduce excessive consumption, and stop shifting burdens onto the Global South

4. Public, grant-based climate finance as reparations: The transition must be funded through public finance provided by the Global North countries and historical polluters, not debt or private markets, including debt cancellation and support for public and community-led energy systems

5. Energy democracy and decentralised real solutions: Renewable energy must be publicly owned, decentralised, and community-led. This includes small-scale, locally owned and legitimate systems that prioritise energy access, livelihoods, and ecological sustainability over profit.

6. Protection of rights, land, labour, and livelihoods: Transition pathways must centre Indigenous Peoples, afro-descendants, farmers, peasants, fisherfolk, workers, youth, women and gender diverse peoples, and frontline communities, ensuring land rights, labour protections, participation, and self-determination

7. Real solutions rooted in system change: These include agroecology, food sovereignty, care-centred economies, public transport, reduced overconsumption in the Global North, and development pathways based on justice rather than extraction

Because this is the first global conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels, it carries a particular political responsibility. This conference must do more than endorse a vague transition narrative and must clearly reject the mechanisms that are blocking a real one. For an effective outcome out of Santa Marta, false solutions need to be rejected globally. The world does not need more junk credits, more accounting tricks, more greenwashed mega-projects, or more corporate-managed delay. We need an actual transition away from fossil fuels that is rooted in the principles of historical responsibility, fair shares, reparations, decolonisation, democracy, peoples-led, justice and equity.

The Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice (DCJ)is a membership-driven network of more than 200 climate justice and human rights organisations, grassroots movements, and communities, largely from the Global South, working to advance climate justice and system change. DCJ and its members work to challenge corporate capture and false solutions in global climate policy and advocate for peoples led real solutions rooted in principles of historical responsibility, equity, and justice. This briefing is developed for the Santa Marta conference to articulate a clear climate justice perspective on transitioning away from fossil fuels. It can be used by movements, civil society actors, and allied negotiators to strengthen coordinated messaging challenging the inclusion or reinforcing of false solutions in any outcome of the First Conference on Transition away from Fossil Fuels being held in Santa Marta, Colombia.

The post No False Solutions in the Transition Away from Fossil Fuels: A Climate Justice Position from the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice appeared first on Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice.

‘FRESH’ and Affordable Foods Act is rotten to the core Anthony Lacey April 22, 2026

WASHINGTON – Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.) today introduced a draft bill that would, if enacted, further hobble an already broken system that allows scores of food chemicals to come onto the market with little government oversight.

The bill would gut rules on the information companies must provide the Food and Drug Administration when submitting a notice that a food chemical is “generally recognized as safe,” or GRAS. Known as the FDA Review and Evaluation for Safe, Healthy and Affordable Foods, or FRESH and Affordable Foods Act, the bill would:

• Preempt, retroactively and prospectively, all state food chemical laws, including those banning the toxic “forever chemicals” known as PFAS from food packaging and artificial dyes from school food. 
• Allow new food chemicals linked to cancer and reproductive harm to be considered “safe.”
• Allow new food chemicals to be added to food without an affirmative finding of safety by the FDA.
• Retroactively approve all food chemicals currently considered GRAS.
• Allow new chemicals to be added to food if the FDA does not respond to a GRAS notice within 90 days. 
• Allow new chemicals to be added to food as long as the food chemical company submits a “synopsis” of the chemical company’s safety conclusion.
• Allow new chemicals to be added to food without giving the FDA basic information, such as estimates of dietary exposure. 
• Allow new chemicals reviewed by industry-funded expert panels – including the flavor industry’s notorious “expert” panel – to be automatically GRAS and used in food immediately. 
• Allow companies to use food chemicals in new ways, without asking the FDA for approval. 
• Allow chemicals to be added to food for two years after the FDA determines they are no longer safe, unless there is a severe and imminent risk of harm. 

“I did not think it was possible to make our food system even weaker, but this proposal does it,” said Melanie Benesh, the Environmental Working Group’s vice president for government affairs.

Undermining food safety

Under current law, chemical companies – not the FDA – decide whether a food chemical is safe. Since 2000, almost all new chemicals – nearly 99% –  have come onto the market through the GRAS loophole, an EWG analysis found. 

Currently, many though not all chemical companies wanting to bring a new chemical onto the market submit a GRAS notice to the FDA, and the FDA responds with a “no questions” letter. 

The FRESH and Affordable Act would undermine this already weak system by reducing the information food chemical companies must provide to the FDA and by enlisting industry-funded expert panels to deem food chemicals safe  as long as they are added to an FDA database. 

Experts could continue to have conflicts of interest as long as the divided loyalties are “managed.”

“Blocking state action and further weakening FDA review of chemicals is the food industry’s dream come true: no state regulation, no federal regulation, no problem,” Benesh said.

Making the system worse

In the absence of federal action, states have led the way, banning toxic chemicals linked to cancer and other health harms. 

“We need the FDA to ensure the safety of food chemicals, but this industry proposal would make our current system even worse,” Benesh said.

“In addition to allowing new chemicals to be added to food without FDA review, the FDA does not regularly reconsider the safety of the chemicals we’re already eating,” she said. But the industry bill will not require the FDA to review a single food chemical for safety. 

“The funding proposed by this bill is a fig leaf,” she said. “This proposal will make our food less safe, not safer, by letting industry experts, not the experts we can trust, decide whether new food chemicals are safe and by failing to make sure the chemicals we’re already eating are safe. 

“Every parent should be outraged that the food brands that want their trust propose leaving them with no protection from toxic chemicals in the food they serve their families. Allowing chemicals linked to cancer to be added to food without FDA approval – or without even sharing basic information with the FDA – will not make America healthy.” 

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The Environmental Working Group (EWG) is a nonprofit, non-partisan organization that empowers people to live healthier lives in a healthier environment. Through research, advocacy and unique education tools, EWG drives consumer choice and civic action.

Areas of Focus Food Food Chemicals Press Contact Iris Myers iris@ewg.org (202) 939-9126 April 22, 2026

This is a guest blog by Nicole Pita, Programme Manager at IPES-Food, the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems, a global think tank and expert group guiding action for sustainable food systems around the world.

If you’ve been feeling like your grocery bills keep climbing, you’re not alone. In the United States, families are paying nearly 25% more for food than they did in 2020. In Germany, food costs 43% more than five years ago, while in Mexico and Brazil prices have jumped 42% and 50%. Now experts are warning of a looming food price crisis as a result of the global energy price spikes triggered by the US and Israeli war on Iran. 

Why is this happening? Ultimately, it’s because our food systems run on fossil fuels, and every time there’s a crisis – a pandemic, a war, a drought – we all pay the price. At the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food) we have outlined this in our report, Fuel to Fork. 

Food systems consume 15% of global fossil fuels. Source: Global Alliance for the Future of Food. (2023). Power shift: Why we need to wean industrial food systems off fossil fuel.

 

How is our food connected to fossil fuels?

Food systems consume 15% of all fossil fuels globally. From chemical fertilizers and diesel tractors to long-distance transport and cooking gas, fossil fuels power every step of producing, processing, and consuming food. When oil and gas prices spike, food prices follow. 

Food, fertilizer and fossil energy prices are deeply interlinked.
Source: Levi, IMF Primary Commodity Price Index.

This fossil fuel dependence creates a triple threat. First, it makes food vulnerable to oil price spikes. Second, it drives climate breakdown, causing droughts and floods that destroy harvests. Third, a handful of corporations control the system and profit enormously every time there’s a crisis. 

This isn’t a new problem, but it’s getting worse. During the COVID-19 pandemic, supply chain disruptions pushed food prices up. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, energy, fertilizer, and wheat prices soared, driving grocery bills higher. Each time, pushing millions of people into hunger, especially in the world’s poorest and most vulnerable regions.

Now, as war erupts in the Persian Gulf, it’s happening again. Global oil and fertilizer prices have increased by 50% since the war began. Food prices haven’t spiked yet – but they will. One-third of crude oil and one-third of fertilizers all normally pass through shipping routes now blocked by the conflict. Even if the war ended tomorrow, it would take months for supply chains to recover. 

The shocks of COVID and the Ukraine war accounted for nearly half of all grocery price increases in the US and 35% of price increases in the EU over the past five years. During 2021-2022 alone, 45 million more people went hungry because they couldn’t afford food.

There’s another reason food keeps getting more expensive: the fossil-fueled climate crisis. Droughts in the US Midwest and Canada destroyed harvests in 2022. Floods in India and South Asia pushed up rice prices in 2023 and 2025. The climate crisis is affecting crop production itself, making food harder to grow. The irony is that food systems produce one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions, making them both a victim and a driver of the crisis.

A carefully designed system built to stay dependent on fossil fuels

Fossil fuel dependence in food systems didn’t happen by accident. Governments and funding institutions pushed farmers toward growing commodity crops for export using chemical fertilizers made from fossil fuels. Today, governments spend close to $800 billion per year supporting this chemical-intensive agriculture, while sustainable farming gets only a fraction of that support. 

And corporate lobbyists are spending hundreds of millions to keep it that way. In Europe alone they spend at least €343 million per year on lobbying – with fossil fuel and agribusiness firms increasing their spending since 2020. Companies like Shell and Bayer follow the same playbook: delay action, weaken regulations, protect profits. 

This fossil fuel-dependent system ends up being incredibly profitable for a few corporations. Just a handful of corporations control how food is produced, transported, and sold. They set the prices and we have no choice but to pay them. And when crises hit, they exploit the chaos.

During COVID and the Ukraine war, the largest fertilizer companies hiked prices far beyond their actual costs. Grain traders, food manufacturers, and retailers did the same. In the US, corporate profiteering accounted for 54% of food price increases between 2020 and 2021. During a food price crisis, while families struggled to afford food, these corporations posted record earnings.

These three problems feed each other. Fossil fuel dependence creates vulnerability to shocks. Climate chaos makes food scarce. And corporate concentration lets companies exploit both for profit. Breaking this cycle means completely reconfiguring the way we grow, process, and consume food.

A better, more affordable food system is already taking root

Another food system is possible – one that’s resilient to shocks, protects the climate, and works for people instead of corporate profits. Across the world – from Cuba to India to France – millions of farmers have already transitioned to agroecology, sustainable farming that doesn’t depend on fossil fuels or chemical inputs. These farmers build fertility naturally by planting beans that enrich soil, rotating crops, and composting waste instead of buying chemicals. Studies show these farms match or exceed conventional yields, can be profitable for farmers, and feed communities better. 

The transition takes time and farmers need support, but it makes farming systems more resilient rather than vulnerable to price shocks. It’s also clearly needed as part of the fight to tackle the climate crisis. 

The solutions exist, what’s missing is the political will. Governments have the tools to make food affordable right now while building a better food system for the future. Here’s what must happen:

• Tax the corporations that profit from crises. Windfall taxes on fossil fuel and agribusiness firms could immediately bring down costs for consumers and farmers.
• End the subsidies that keep us locked into dependence. Stop giving billions to fossil fuel corporations and chemical-intensive agriculture. Redirect that money to renewable energy and sustainable farming.
• Invest in local and regional food systems that don’t depend on long, fragile supply chains vulnerable to shocks, as outlined in our IPES-Food report Food from Somewhere. 

If we want to stabilize food prices, we have to break food’s dependence on fossil fuels. Otherwise, every new crisis will keep showing up at the checkout.

Ending fossil fuel addiction isn’t just about climate – it’s about making food affordable.

Governments won’t change course unless we demand it. Tell your leaders: End fossil fuel subsidies and tax polluters. Invest in renewable energy and sustainable, chemical-free farming. 

The post Out of Pocket: the real cost of fossil fuels on our groceries appeared first on 350.