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Four EWG-sponsored California consumer choice, safety bills clear key spending committees JR Culpepper August 13, 2026

SACRAMENTO – Four bills sponsored by the Environmental Working Group this week cleared appropriations committees in the California Legislature, sending the legislation for full floor votes as state lawmakers enter their final voting stretch before adjournment.

The bills target some of the most pressing consumer health and affordability issues facing Californians: toxic “forever chemical” pesticides, undisclosed chemicals in baby diapers, America’s addiction to ultra-processed foods and sky-high electricity bills. 

“Sacramento lawmakers have a chance this month to prove, once again, why California continues to reshape the national marketplace on health and safety,” said Bernadette Del Chiaro, EWG's senior vice president for California. 

“Each of these bills reflects something simple: people deserve transparency, and they deserve affordable options that don't compromise their health,” she added.

Using solar to lower sky-high electricity bills (Senate Bill 868)

SB 868, the Plug and Play Solar Act, would cut the red tape blocking affordable balcony solar systems from being placed in apartments, condos and single-family homes, while ensuring the systems meet strict safety standards. The bill sustained some extensive amendments in the Assembly Appropriations Committee that have yet to be reviewed and analyzed. 

The bill is authored by Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) and sponsored by EWG and the Abundance Network, and now heads for an Assembly floor vote.

“Balcony solar lets California residents place a small solar panel on a sunny patio or balcony, plug it into a regular wall outlet and start saving on their electricity bill right away,” said Del Chiaro. “Installing balcony solar is as simple as plugging an appliance like a toaster into a standard wall outlet. At a time when many struggle to pay their energy bills, balcony solar is a powerful cost-cutting tool. 

“We have yet to see the amendments to the bill and can’t yet comment on their significance,” she added.

California electricity rates have nearly doubled over the past decade, leaving the state with the nation's second-highest energy prices. A single 400-watt balcony solar system can cover roughly 14% of the average apartment's electricity usage, providing savings of about $250 per year. While the cost of balcony solar starts around $500 today, EWG expects SB 868 would enable broader adoption of the systems, making them more accessible to low-income households.

Balcony solar already thrives in Europe, with more than 4 million systems installed in Germany alone, and efforts to expand deployment continue to gather steam in other countries. 

In the U.S., regulatory barriers have kept the technology out of reach for many – barriers SB 868 would remove while setting statewide safety standards. 

Other states are moving in the same direction, including New York, where a balcony solar bill now awaits Gov. Kathy Hochul's signature.

Widespread use of PFAS pesticides (Assembly Bill 1603)

AB 1603, by Assemblymember Nick Schultz (D-Burbank), would address the use of toxic "forever chemicals" pesticides allowed for use in California. It now heads to the Senate floor.

More than 2.5 million pounds of PFAS pesticides are applied to California crops each year, contaminating produce, soil and water. EWG research found PFAS pesticides on nine in 10 California-grown samples of peaches, nectarines and plums tested by the state.

As introduced, AB 1603 would have banned the use, sale and manufacture of PFAS pesticides statewide by 2035, paused new state approvals immediately, phased out by 2030 the PFAS pesticides not permitted in Europe, and required public disclosure of PFAS pesticide use.

Under pressure from the pesticide industry and agricultural interests, the bill's author agreed to remove the ban provisions and other restrictions, in order to keep the legislation moving.  

Even in its amended form, AB 1603 is an important step forward as it represents growing legislative concern about regulating PFAS as a class of chemicals, and it marks the first time California has required the state to systematically track and disclose PFAS pesticide use, information state agencies didn't have before EWG's research brought it to light.

“We need to stop spraying our strawberries and peaches with toxic forever chemicals,” said Susan Little, EWG's California legislative director.  “We are contaminating our food and water supplies and it needs to stop.”  

“With this bill, we are calling a spade a spade so that farmers and the public alike can be aware of the extent of this problem and we can continue to address it,” she added.

Of the thousands of PFAS used in commerce, very few have comprehensive toxicity data, but what we do know is alarming: the health harms linked to the most well-studied PFAS, including cancer, immune suppression, and reproductive and developmental harm, show up at doses far lower than regulators once considered safe. 

Baby diapers made of mystery chemicals (Assembly Bill 1901)

AB 1901, by Assemblymember Marc Berman (D-Menlo Park), would require manufacturers of children's diapers sold, distributed or manufactured in California to fully disclose all intentionally added ingredients, both on product packaging and online.

EWG is co-sponsoring the bill alongside Consumer Reports, the Center for Environmental Health and Children Now. AB 1901 now heads to a full Senate floor vote.

Babies spend much of their first two to three years of life in diapers. Yet disposable diapers are exempt by the federal government from carrying ingredient labels of any kind, and manufacturers are not required to inform regulators about the chemicals used to make them.

Today, manufacturers can hide dozens of chemicals behind umbrella terms like “fragrance” or “colors,” potentially toxic mystery cocktails that leave parents with no way of knowing what chemicals sit against their baby's skin day after day.

“A newborn can't choose what touches their skin, and right now, neither can their parents because manufacturers have made sure of it,” said EWG’s Little. 

“Every hour of every day, an infant's skin is absorbing whatever industry decided not to tell us about. Parents can read a nutrition label or a shampoo label but not this. AB 1901 isn't asking for anything radical. It's asking for diapers to contain ingredient labels that are similar to labels  required of other baby products,” she added.

Recent tests have found diapers may contain volatile organic compounds; phthalates, linked to hormone disruption and reproductive and developmental harm; quaternary ammonium compounds, or quats, used in wetness indicators and linked to reproductive effects, skin irritation and asthma; and dyes and bleaching agents that can cause allergic reactions or skin and respiratory irritation. Because babies' skin is thinner, more permeable and still developing, they are especially vulnerable to these exposures.

EWG has created a Guide to Safer Diapers to help parents navigate the market in the meantime, and diapers earning the EWG Verified® mark meet our strict standards for ingredient transparency and health.

What is and isn't ultra-processed food (Assembly Bill 2244)

AB 2244, by Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel (D-Encino), would create a first-of-its-kind state certification program allowing shoppers to easily identify foods that are not ultra-processed, or UPF. These foods make up more than two-thirds of children's diets and more than half of the typical adult diet in the U.S., and have been linked to serious health harms including cancer, heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, metabolic disorders and mental health issues.

If enacted, the bill would establish a standardized “Non-Ultraprocessed Certified” label. Products could carry the new label if they are classified as “not UPF” under state law. The legislation will next get a full Senate floor vote.

The California Department of Public Health would oversee accreditation of independent certification agents, with products subject to recertification at least every three years. Certification agents would be required to register with the state, disclose all certified products, and submit to state audits at any time, with a public online list of certified products and enforcement against misuse of the label.

“Parents shouldn't need a Ph.D. in chemistry to understand what they're feeding their kids,” said Del Chiaro. “AB 2244 will empower consumers with clear, trustworthy information and make it easier for them to locate healthier foods that are free from harmful additives like flavors. This new seal doesn't limit consumer choice, it just makes informed choice possible.”

 “Consumers deserve labels they can trust. And families deserve a simple way to tell which foods are closer to what comes from a kitchen rather than a factory,” she added.

The bill would also require large food retailers, those selling more than 25 individual non-UPF-certified product types and generating more than $10 million in annual sales, to display certified products in a way that's easy for shoppers to identify, such as through special signage or physical separation in stores. 

What's next

If lawmakers pass the bills, they would head to Gov. Gavin Newsom's desk for his signature.

“California has an opportunity, once again, to show the rest of the country what real consumer protection looks like,” Del Chiaro said. “We're urging lawmakers to finish the job on all four of these bills.”

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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.

Legislation covers diaper chemicals, PFAS pesticides, solar and ultra-processed food Press Contact Monica Amarelo monica@ewg.org (202) 939-9140 August 13, 2026

Bold Nebraska’s 2014 GOTV (Get Out the Vote) door-to-door canvass in Omaha. (Photo: J Grace Young)

Nebraskans deserve to know where the legislative candidates who are asking for their votes stand on the issue of risky carbon capture projects and the abuse of eminent domain by private carbon pipeline corporations.

We need to get each candidate on the record – but we need your help.

Below is a sample message, contact info for candidates, and a link to a form to report back their responses. If you can contact just 3 candidates, it will greatly help us reach our goal!

If you have any questions, please reach out to Shelli Meyer at shelli@boldalliance.org or Tom Genung at tom@boldnebraska.org.

P.S. While we are focused on legislative candidates, it doesn’t hurt to ask candidates running for other offices about this issue, too!

Sample phone/email conversation with candidate:

“Hello, I am reaching out as a Nebraska voter. I am concerned about risky carbon capture and storage (CCS) schemes taking place across our state and the undermining of our property rights by privately-owned corporations abusing eminent domain. If elected, will you protect landowners and communities by supporting legislation that prohibits the use of eminent domain for CCS projects?

Thank you for your time,”

Click here for a list of candidates and contact info, and a form to report-back your results. 

Fencing at Cuadrilla’s controversial former fracking site in Lancashire is being dismantled and removed.

Removal of site fencing, 13 August 2026. Photo: Chris Holliday

The work, which began yesterday (12 August 2026), appears to be the first stage of the long-awaited restoration of the well pad at Preston New Road, near Blackpool.

Local reports said fencing on two sides of the compound have gone. Contractors’ vehicles have been on the site for two days.

Work began on fence removal, 12 August 2026. Photo: Used with the owner’s consent Fence removal, 12 August 2026. Photo: Used with the owner’s consent Fence removal, 12 August 2026. Photo: Used with the owner’s consent Fence removal, 13 August 2026. Photo: Chris Holliday

The two Preston New Road shale gas wells were plugged and abandoned last year.

But in December 2025, Cuadrilla was refused more time to restore Preston New Road.

The site has been the subject of planning enforcement action for more than two months because of delays to restoration.

On 8 June 2026, Lancashire County Council announced it had served an enforcement notice requiring the removal of all plant, buildings, security, acoustic fencing, pollution control membranes, aggregates and concerete hardstanding.

The action followed Cuadrilla’s failure to meet an approved restoration timetable.

We understand the official restoration timetable began on 8 July 2026. Cuadrilla had four months, until 8 November 2026, to remove the surface infrastructure. The subsoil must be replaced by 8 December 2026 and the top soil by 8 January 2027.

Preston New Road has been mothballed since August 2019 when operations were suspended after fracking caused a record-breaking 2.9ML earthquake.

Open access notables

Methane Emissions From Wildfires: Trends and Anomalies, Zhu et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres 

Wildfires emit smoke particles and trace gases including greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, impacting the environment and leading to detrimental impacts on human health and economy. The estimation of spatially and temporally resolved methane emissions from biomass burning (BB) provides critical information in developing measurement-informed methane inventories. The use of satellite active fire products (fire radiative power) is an effective pathway to investigate wildfire emissions around the world. In this study, the Global BB Emissions Product-eXtended algorithm is employed to estimate long-term temporal variation and geographic distribution of methane emissions from BB using satellite observations from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer and the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite. Globally, on average about 19 Megatonnes of BB methane are released to the atmosphere every year, nearly half of it originating from Africa, where BB represents a significant proportion of the total methane emissions. Our findings show that methane emissions from wildfires are substantial and can exceed other source sectors during extreme wildfire events, negating gains from years of emission reductions from anthropogenic sources. The contribution of fires to the methane budget is significant for regions with intense fire activities. Effective wildfire prevention and management could be beneficial to rapidly reduce methane emissions from BB.

Diurnal asymmetry in heat stress intensification across Bangladesh, 1985–2024: Accelerated nighttime warming and emerging urban risk, Kamruzzaman et al., PLOS Climate

Bangladesh’s rapidly growing cities are becoming hotter, but how heat stress is changing over the day–night cycle has remained unclear. Using 40 years (1985–2024) of hourly Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI) data from ERA5-HEAT, we examined long-term changes in physiologically relevant heat stress across Bangladesh and its major cities. Results show a clear day–night imbalance in warming: nighttime heat stress (UTCI???) is rising faster than daytime extremes. National trends indicate increases of +0.03 °C per decade for UTCI???, +0.02 °C for daily mean UTCI, and +0.01 °C for UTCI???, with the strongest warming occurring in the early morning hours. These national spatially averaged trends reflect the mean across all 194 grid cells; individual grid cells show local trends of +0.1 to +0.4°C per decade, and the cumulative nighttime warming over the full 40-year period reaches approximately 1.0–1.7°C across most of the country. This signals a steady loss of nighttime cooling that people rely on for physical recovery. The most pronounced nighttime warming occurs in western and southern Bangladesh. Major cities—including Dhaka, Rajshahi, Khulna, Chattogram, and Sylhet—show additional intensification consistent with, but not directly attributed to, urban heat-island dynamics at the spatial scale of this analysis. The number of very strong heat stress days (UTCI > 38 °C) has increased by 4–15 days per decade, and cities such as Rajshahi and Dhaka now experience more than 150 such days annually. Together, these findings indicate a transition from occasional heat extremes to persistent, 24-hour heat stress, increasing risks to health, labor productivity, and urban resilience. By identifying when heat stress is rising fastest and where it is concentrated, this study provides evidence to support city-specific heat-action plans, early-warning systems, and climate-responsive urban design in rapidly warming regions.

Significant soil warming across Alaska permafrost and non-permafrost regions from 1997 to 2023, Oliver & Phillips, Frontiers in Climate

Air temperatures in Alaska are increasing at twice the rate of the contiguous United States. Soil temperatures have been shown to be increasing across various landscapes but have overall received less attention. No comprehensive studies have been conducted in Alaska looking at soil temperature trends on a broad scale. In this paper we synthesized soil and air temperature data from 43 weather stations across Alaska spanning a 27-year period (1997-2023). Stations were divided into three regions based on permafrost extent (continuous, discontinuous, and no permafrost). Soil temperature trends were calculated at 5, 20, and 50 cm depth in all three permafrost regions, and additionally at 70, 95, and 120 cm depth for the continuous permafrost region only. Annual average soil temperatures increased significantly across all regions with the fastest warming rates occurring at the highest latitudes. Whole profile warming averaged 0.64, 0.37, and 0.35°C dec-1 in the continuous, discontinuous, and no permafrost regions, respectively. Warming was not slowed by increasing soil depth. Air temperatures warmed faster than soil (p < 0.05) in the continuous permafrost region (1.15°C dec-1) but were not significantly different from soil in the discontinuous and no permafrost regions (p > 0.1). Seasonally, soils in the continuous and discontinuous regions warmed fastest in the winter months, whereas in the no permafrost region soils warmed fastest in the summer months.

Optimizing the Rainwater Harvesting and Roof Sprinkling System to Adapt to Urban Extreme Heat, Yu et al., Earth s Future

Roof watering is a novel strategy for reducing air conditioning energy consumption and mitigating excess urban heat, yet its application is often constrained by water availability. To address this challenge, we propose an adaptation strategy that integrates rainwater harvesting tank with roof sprinkling to strengthen urban heat resilience. We develop a new module implemented in the Community Land Model Urban (CLMU) to evaluate the efficacy of the proposed strategy, whose parameters were further determined by a framework using multi-objective optimization combined with a transformer-based tabular foundation model. This integrated modeling framework enables the optimization of the proposed strategy and provides insights into its impacts on air conditioning energy consumption and its co-benefits on the urban thermal environment. Results show that the temperature threshold for triggering sprinkling is a more important parameter than rainwater tank size or sprinkling intensity. The optimal strategies effectively reduce cooling energy demand, lower extreme temperatures, and decrease heatwave days. However, a trade-off exists between rainwater tank size and the reduction in cooling energy consumption and heatwave days. Additionally, the energy saving is more pronounced under higher atmospheric temperatures. The implementation of the rainwater harvesting and roof sprinkling system in CLMU provides valuable insights for improving urban resilience and can be further coupled into Earth system model for large-scale studies.

From this week's government/NGO section:

State of the Climate in 2025, Blunden et al., American Meteorological Society

The authors provide a comprehensive, observation-based assessment of Earth’s climate system that not only documents what happened during a given year (e.g., 2025), but also how that year compares to previous years in the observational record. Thus, it is critical to have continuous, long-term observations of various components of the Earth system to document variability and change over time. Many of these observations, both current and historical, are also assimilated into various reanalysis products (e.g., ERA5 and MERRA-2), which are physically constrained representations of the Earth system and are used extensively throughout the State of the Climate report. Reanalyzes are particularly useful in regions where in situ and satellite observations are sparse.

Built for backup, contracted to run: China’s coal support system risks crowding out clean power, Qin et al., The Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air and Global Energy Monitor

New coal power plants entering operation in China reached the highest first-half year level since 2016, with 10 GW entering operation for every 1 GW retired, despite a policy shift towards tighter control of new project approvals. China commissioned 30 GW of new coal power, up 43% from last year, while retiring only 2.7 GW. Another 25.4 GW started construction; Coal power generation rebounded 3.4% year-on-year in H1 2026, reversing the 2025 decline. The rapid expansion of coal power capacity led to worsening oversupply, reflected both in the increase of wasted wind and solar generation and in falling utilization of coal power plants; The rebound was not evidence of a broad return to coal following LNG shipping disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz. China’s combined domestic coal production and imports in fact fell by 1.4% year-on-year in H1 2026, rather than expanding in response to the external energy shock. Growth in clean energy supply and electrification helped offset the fall in oil supply and limit increases in fossil fuel consumption; Estimated wind and solar curtailment, including both reported and unreported curtailment, reached 360 TWh in H1 2026, up 49% year-on-year. Had this electricity been absorbed, the additional power supply could have met all demand growth and allowed coal power generation to fall. 132 articles in 58 journals by 1667 contributing authors

Physical science of climate change, effects

Regime shifts of AMOC-sea surface temperature relationship, Fan et al., Nature Communications Open Access 10.1038/s41467-026-76149-4

Trends in the Seasonal Cycle of the Equatorial Pacific Cold Tongue, Jiang et al., Journal of Climate Open Access pdf 10.1175/jcli-d-26-0049.1

Observations of climate change, effects

Diurnal asymmetry in heat stress intensification across Bangladesh, 1985–2024: Accelerated nighttime warming and emerging urban risk, Kamruzzaman et al., PLOS Climate Open Access pdf 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000848

Globally and intergenerationally unequal exposure to hourly heat extremes, Liao et al., Nature Climate Change 10.1038/s41558-026-02724-8

Recent History of Surface Ocean Acidification Extremes That Compound Marine Heatwaves, Gregor & Gruber, AGU Advances Open Access 10.1029/2025av002112

Significant soil warming across Alaska permafrost and non-permafrost regions from 1997 to 2023, Oliver & Phillips, Frontiers in Climate Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2026.1887902

Spatiotemporal Patterns of Drought and Flood Abrupt Alternation and Their Driving Factors in China from 1951 to 2020, Li et al., Journal of Hydrometeorology Open Access pdf 10.1175/jhm-d-25-0187.1

State of the Climate in 2025, Zhao et al., Atmospheric and Oceanic Science Letters Open Access 10.1016/j.aosl.2026.100897

Instrumentation & observational methods of climate change, effects

The rise of AI in weather and climate information and its impact on global inequality, Mozaffari et al., npj Climate Action Open Access pdf 10.1038/s44168-026-00412-z

Modeling, simulation & projection of climate change, effects

Intensification of the North Pacific Storm Track in the Mid-1980s: Internal Variability Versus External Forcing, Yang, Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2026gl124032

Machine learning-based projection of China's ski resort suitability under CMIP6 scenarios, ZHAO et al., Advances in Climate Change Research Open Access 10.1016/j.accre.2026.08.002

Projections of Earth's Hottest Surface Temperatures in CMIP6, Wilson et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2026gl122540

Advancement of climate & climate effects modeling, simulation & projection

Advances in regional climate science in South America and Central America during the CORDEX Era, Bettolli et al., PLOS Climate Open Access pdf 10.1371/journal.pclm.0001015

Global fully coupled climate-aerosol CMA-CPSv4 – Part 1: Aerosol simulation performance, Zheng et al., Geoscientific model development Open Access 10.5194/gmd-19-7279-2026

Impact of mesoscale eddy parameterization on Arctic Atlantic Water circulation and heat transport in the eddy-permitting grey zone, Pemberton et al., Ocean science Open Access 10.5194/os-22-2375-2026

Statistical Downscaling of Daily Temperature and Precipitation From Regional Climate Models in Complex Mountain Terrain, Matiu et al., International Journal of Climatology Open Access 10.1002/joc.70545

Underestimated Arctic “Radiator Fin” Effect in Climate Model Simulations, Huang & Huang, Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2026gl122725

Cryosphere & climate change

A nine-year record of slush on the Greenland Ice Sheet, Glen et al., cryosphere Open Access pdf 10.5194/tc-20-4345-2026

A State-Space Model for Monitoring Greenland Ice Sheet Surface Elevation Change from CryoSat-2, Andersen et al., cryosphere Open Access pdf 10.5194/tc-20-4327-2026

Arctic sea ice loss amplifies local evaporation influence on water vapor isotopes: insights from cruise observations, Zhang et al., Atmospheric chemistry and physics Open Access pdf 10.5194/acp-26-11189-2026

Destabilization of seasonal snow cover under climate warming: Mechanisms and implications from four decades of satellite observations across mainland China, Wu et al., Global and Planetary Change 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2026.105644

Future climate change will intensify snow drought in the high-latitude water tower, Changbai Mountain, Xu et al., Global and Planetary Change 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2026.105646

Glacier mass balance response to extreme precipitation events in the Western Himalaya, India, Kumar et al., Global and Planetary Change 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2026.105643

Glacier surges on James Ross Island, Antarctica, and their relationship with climate, Davison et al., cryosphere Open Access 10.5194/tc-20-4293-2026

Snow-eater heat waves of the western United States, Rhoades et al., Science Advances Open Access 10.1126/sciadv.aeb3361

Synchronous Holocene thinning of Pine Island Glacier and its tributaries influenced by ice-shelf unpinning, Johnson et al., Nature Communications Open Access 10.1038/s41467-026-76244-6

Sea level & climate change

Diverse response of extreme sea levels amplification and more vulnerable deltas/islands in the northern South China Sea by the end of the 21st century, Chen et al., Advances in Climate Change Research Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.accre.2026.07.021

Increasing Frequency of Coastal Erosion Indicated by a Hindcast Model of Storm-Driven Forcing Calibrated With Beach Stratigraphy, Schmelz et al., Earth s Future Open Access 10.1029/2025ef007482

Paleoclimate & paleogeochemistry

Planetary energy budget during abrupt glacial climate events set by Atlantic Ocean heat valve, Buizert et al., Nature Geoscience 10.1038/s41561-026-02070-6

Biology & climate change, related geochemistry

Abalone Mortality Associated With Hypoxia in Tidepools During a Summer Heatwave, Gagnon et al., Ecology and Evolution Open Access 10.1002/ece3.74126

Arctic sea-ice variability is linked to long-term changes in bowhead whale foraging, Teixeira et al., Marine Environmental Research 10.1016/j.marenvres.2026.108344

Beyond temperature: The environmental constraints of high-mountain microrefugia, Vrábel et al., Journal of Ecology Open Access 10.1111/1365-2745.70422

Blue rings in Scots pine indicate cooling in the early and late growing season at the northern treeline, ?ermák et al., Dendrochronologia Open Access 10.1016/j.dendro.2026.126592

Climate Warming Is Causing an Increasing Dominance of Smaller Moth Species, Ellis et al., Global Ecology and Biogeography Open Access 10.1111/geb.70294

Continental-Scale Biodiversity Predictions Are Influenced by Climatic Variability and Extreme Weather, Cohen et al., Global Change Biology 10.1111/gcb.71028

Coupling Climate Downscaling With Species Distribution Models to Identify Potential Climate Refugia for Giant Panda Forage Bamboos, Shang et al., Ecology and Evolution Open Access 10.1002/ece3.74162

Denning Phenology Mediates Sea-Ice Loss Impacts on Early Reproductive Success in Polar Bears, Naciri et al., Global Change Biology 10.1111/gcb.71042

Evaluation and Forecasting of Habitat Suitability and Thermal Growth Responses in the Mud Clam Geloina coaxans under Climate Change, Liu et al., Marine Environmental Research 10.1016/j.marenvres.2026.108337

Future NDVI projections and ensemble strategy comparison in Inner Mongolia under CMIP6 scenarios, Li et al., Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution Open Access 10.3389/fevo.2026.1921058

Global threat exposure of islands in a changing world, Marino et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Open Access 10.1073/pnas.2534106123

Hydraulic traits govern opposing range shifts of montane trees under warming, Zhang et al., Nature Climate Change 10.1038/s41558-026-02726-6

Metabolic Responses of Mammals to Temperature Anomalies Vary Across Climates, Rubalcaba & Correas-Araus, Global Ecology and Biogeography 10.1111/geb.70293

Oxygen Deprivation Implicated in Rapid Coral Mortality Under Acute Heating Events, Dhillon et al., Global Change Biology 10.1111/gcb.71030

Projecting the impact of climate change on the lipid profile of the hydrocoral Millepora alcicornis: Relative lipid homeostasis under warming and ocean acidification, Marrero et al., Marine Environmental Research 10.1016/j.marenvres.2026.108349

Resident and Migratory Falcons' Breeding Phenology and Productivity Respond Differently to Weather and Climate Change Across the Arctic, Gulotta et al., Global Change Biology Open Access 10.1111/gcb.71022

The Impact of Climate Change and Human Habitation on Long-Term Ecological Stability, Staples et al., Global Ecology and Biogeography Open Access 10.1111/geb.70296

GHG sources & sinks, flux, related geochemistry

Accelerating biomass loss from forest disturbances across Europe, Kowalski et al., Nature Geoscience Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41561-026-02032-y

Carbon dioxide fluxes of two differently managed sites in a former Scots pine plantation in response to widespread drought mortality, Sulzer et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology Open Access 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111398

Decadal doubling of Siberian methane emissions due to warming-induced fires and methanogenesis, Zhu et al., Science Open Access 10.1126/science.aea5828

Global Change Impacts on Mineral-Associated Organic Matter: Consequences for Soil Carbon Persistence, Jia & Feng, Global Change Biology 10.1111/gcb.71037

Global methane emissions from rice paddies are now increasingly quantifiable, Mehla et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-026-03902-4

Mechanical thresholds constrain global peatland carbon accumulation, Mahdiyasa et al., Scientific Reports Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41598-026-66259-w

Methane Emissions From Wildfires: Trends and Anomalies, Zhu et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres Open Access 10.1029/2026jd046687

Persistence of Arctic Ocean acidification under negative emissions, Köhn et al., Nature Climate Change Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41558-026-02715-9

Snow depth shifts greenhouse gas balance during freeze–thaw periods in grasslands, Luo et al., Journal of Ecology 10.1111/1365-2745.70421

The impact of artificial intelligence on carbon emission intensity: evidence for an early-stage inverted U-shaped relationship, Wang, Frontiers in Environmental Science Open Access pdf 10.3389/fenvs.2026.1756431

Decarbonization

A policy-navigation framework for exploring hydrogen integration pathways in Great Britain towards net zero, Abuella et al., Energy Policy Open Access 10.1016/j.enpol.2026.115535

Charging infrastructure network expansion for electric vehicles in Norway from a grid perspective: Barriers and solutions, Hjelkrem & Flataker, Energy Policy Open Access 10.1016/j.enpol.2026.115528

CO2 mitigation potential of biomass-derived charcoal in Indian iron and steel industry: A case study from Karnataka, Tikadar et al., Energy Sustainable Development/Energy for sustainable development 10.1016/j.esd.2026.102093

Decarbonization potential and limits of e-fuel policies in the EU, Campos-Rodríguez et al., Energy Policy 10.1016/j.enpol.2026.115529

Evidence of predation events by marine mammals at offshore wind farms, Bicknell et al., Scientific Reports Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41598-026-65167-3

Impact of renewable energy communities on the Italian day-ahead electricity market: A scenario analysis, Koltunov et al., Energy Policy pdf 10.1016/j.enpol.2026.115518

Linking photovoltaic development with energy storage: A review of solar-to-battery integration pathways, Kashyap et al., Energy Sustainable Development/Energy for sustainable development 10.1016/j.esd.2026.102096

Geoengineering climate

Assessing combinations of regional MCB designed to target multiple climate response objectives, Mason et al., Atmospheric chemistry and physics Open Access 10.5194/acp-26-10861-2026

Middle atmosphere chemical and dynamical effects in the CCMI-2022 stratospheric aerosol injection scenario, Jörimann et al., Atmospheric chemistry and physics Open Access 10.5194/acp-26-11207-2026

Aerosols

A global model of dust mineralogy: Impacts on aerosol absorption, radiative balance and climate, Liu et al., Atmospheric Environment 10.1016/j.atmosenv.2026.122263

Effects of East Asian Anthropogenic Aerosol Emissions Reduction on Summer Extreme Heat Events in Eastern China, Shu et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres 10.1029/2025jd045994

Global fully coupled climate-aerosol CMA-CPSv4 – Part 1: Aerosol simulation performance, Zheng et al., Geoscientific model development Open Access 10.5194/gmd-19-7279-2026

Climate change communications & cognition

Beyond the Greenwash: Understanding and Mitigating the Impact of Misleading Native Advertisements from Fossil Fuel Companies, Krishna et al., Environmental Communication 10.1080/17524032.2026.2714124

Climate imagination. Dispatches from hopeful futures, Blanchard, Environmental Politics 10.1080/09644016.2026.2709209

Delay Means Death: Development of a Scale to Measure Public Support or Rejection of Climate Delay Discourses, Wójcik et al., Journal of Environmental Psychology 10.1016/j.jenvp.2026.103168

Discourses on the roots and resilience of climate misinformation: perspectives from the Canadian agri-food sector, Kabir & Chowdhury, Climate Policy 10.1080/14693062.2026.2713878

IPCC experts as passeurs actors: A new typology of international experts in domestic science-policy interfaces, Gaveau et al., Environmental Science & Policy Open Access 10.1016/j.envsci.2026.104464

National Survey Explores Associations between Climate Knowledge, Visual Interpretation, Sociodemographics, and Flood Risk Perceptions in U.S. Adults, Ruckert et al., Weather Climate and Society Open Access pdf 10.1175/wcas-d-25-0216.1

Transportation and Climate Behaviors: Comparing Difficulty of Transportation-related Behaviors Across Different Populations, Naseri et al., Journal of Environmental Psychology Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.jenvp.2026.103173

Agronomy, animal husbundry, food production & climate change

A Machine Learning Framework for Rice Yield Prediction under Heat Stress: Enhancing Model Training through Crop-Simulation-Based Scenario Generation, R et al., Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology 10.1175/jamc-d-25-0201.1

Cover crops for soil carbon sequestration and sustainable agroecosystem: a review of ecological processes, Demissie et al., Ecological Processes Open Access 10.1186/s13717-026-00738-w

Designing farmer-centered extension programmes for low-carbon agriculture: evidence from a discrete choice experiment in China, Jiang et al., Figshare Open Access 10.6084/m9.figshare.33204022.v1

Global methane emissions from rice paddies are now increasingly quantifiable, Mehla et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-026-03902-4

Impacts of Future Oil Palm Expansion on Carbon and Hydrological Fluxes Across the Tropics, Xu et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2025gl120846

Long-Term Analysis of Winter Wheat Yield and Climatic Influences in Ukraine, Grabovska et al., International Journal of Climatology Open Access 10.1002/joc.70524

The possibility of growing winter crops in the face of global warming; variation in seed yield and phytochemistry of selected fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum L.) genotypes, Yaldiz & Camlica, Scientific Reports Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41598-026-66442-z

Hydrology, hydrometeorology & climate change

Changes in tropical cyclone size over the western North Pacific, Feng et al., Weather and Climate Extremes Open Access 10.1016/j.wace.2026.100946

Climate change impacts on streamflow in a dam-regulated Mountain Watershed in South Korea using SWAT and CMIP6 projections, Sadiqi et al., Arabian Journal of Geosciences 10.1007/s12517-026-12568-3

Climate extremes expose groundwater risks, Wei & Cao, Science 10.1126/science.aek2112

Future climate change will intensify snow drought in the high-latitude water tower, Changbai Mountain, Xu et al., Global and Planetary Change 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2026.105646

Global River Discharge Projections From a Large Multi-Model Ensemble of CMIP6 and ISIMIP3b Simulations, Seubert et al., Earth s Future Open Access 10.1029/2025ef007982

Periodic extreme rainfall in a warmer climate due to stronger convectively coupled waves, Quan et al., Science Advances Open Access 10.1126/sciadv.aed1634

Record-Breaking Atmospheric River Drives April 2024 Extreme Precipitation in the United Arab Emirates and the Surrounding Gulf Region, Massoud et al., Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 10.1175/bams-d-26-0052.1

Climate change economics

Beyond the mean: the macroeconomic consequences of shifting temperature anomaly distributions, Winter et al., Climatic Change 10.1007/s10584-026-04257-7

Geopolitical fragmentation, climate risk, and crude oil price dynamics: Evidence from TVP-VAR-SV and causal forest models, Aloui et al., Energy Policy 10.1016/j.enpol.2026.115531

The political feasibility of Degrowth and the Green New Deal: Swedish politicians on the relation between economic growth and climate policy, Sellbjer, Environmental Sociology Open Access 10.1080/23251042.2026.2712609

Climate change mitigation public policy research

Climate-friendly food advertising and procurement in English local authorities: A systematic scoping review of policy ambition, Sermin-Reed et al., PLOS Climate Open Access pdf 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000971

Climate change adaptation & adaptation public policy research

Advancing a justice-centred approach to climate (un)inhabitability through transformative adaptation, [] et al., Climate and Development 10.1080/17565529.2026.2714547

Assessing the integration of older adults’ vulnerability in climate adaptation policies in a developing country, Opoku et al., Climate and Development 10.1080/17565529.2026.2714549

Climate adaptation among transnationally connected households in Coastal Havana Province, Cuba, Bernasconi, Frontiers in Climate Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2026.1812869

Climate adaptation investment planning: insights from applications in developing countries, Watkiss et al., Climate and Development 10.1080/17565529.2026.2689995

Climate change and efficiency losses in combined heat and power plants: Evidence from China, Xiao et al., Energy Policy 10.1016/j.enpol.2026.115546

Non-linear urban overheating increments under climate change: Evidence from UKCP18 nighttime temperatures, Zhang et al., Urban Climate Open Access 10.1016/j.uclim.2026.103082

Optimizing the Rainwater Harvesting and Roof Sprinkling System to Adapt to Urban Extreme Heat, Yu et al., Earth s Future Open Access 10.1029/2026ef008876

Putting children at the heart of climate change adaptation policies via Allyship, Bias Recognition and Child Centeredness: A global qualitative interview study, Zangerl et al., PLOS Climate Open Access 10.1371/journal.pclm.0001025

Climate change impacts on human health

Aedes albopictus and Dengue Transmission Risk in France Over the 21st Century, Radici et al., Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) Open Access 10.5281/zenodo.21281650

Diurnal asymmetry in heat stress intensification across Bangladesh, 1985–2024: Accelerated nighttime warming and emerging urban risk, Kamruzzaman et al., PLOS Climate Open Access pdf 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000848

Globally and intergenerationally unequal exposure to hourly heat extremes, Liao et al., Nature Climate Change 10.1038/s41558-026-02724-8

Public perceptions of extreme heat: A review, Howarth & Bedenk-Smith, Environmental Science & Policy Open Access 10.1016/j.envsci.2026.104457

Spatial Heterogeneity in Heat-Related Mortality in the Valencian Region: Implications for Climate Adaptation Beyond Administrative Boundaries, Paredes-Fortuny et al., GeoHealth Open Access 10.1029/2025gh001699

Climate change & geopolitics

The geopolitics of decarbonization: How changing international relations reshape the European Union's sustainability transition, Kiefer, Energy Research & Social Science 10.1016/j.erss.2026.104910

Other

Climate change may increase landslide frequency despite generally drier conditions in the Mediterranean area, Quintero et al., Natural hazards and earth system sciences Open Access pdf 10.5194/nhess-26-3723-2026

Landscape context constrains climate regulation recovery in Amazonian secondary forests, Oliveira et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Open Access 10.1073/pnas.2426400123

Articles/Reports from Agencies and Non-Governmental Organizations Addressing Aspects of Climate Change

Climate change means extreme fire seasons in Canada are here to stay, Keeping et al., World Weather Attribution

At the time of writing, Ontario and the Northwest Territories have been especially affected regions in Canada’s 2026 wildfire season, with hundreds of active fires, many of them out of control. Scientists from Canada, the U.S., the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom collaborated to assess to what extent human-induced climate change altered the likelihood and intensity of the weather conditions at the time of the fires, and how the conditions will be affected with further warming. To assess the role of human-induced climate change the authors combine the observation-based assessments with climate models. In both regions and for both event definitions the climate models show a much smaller increase in likelihood and intensity. Combining models and observations gives an increase in likelihood of about a factor of 5 in the Northwest Territories for DSR7 and a factor 2 for DSR30 and in Ontario of about 2 for both event definitions.

Most Americans have been affected by extreme heat this year, AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research

Adults are increasingly likely to say extreme heat in the past year has impacted their electricity bills, outdoor plans, and other routines. At the same time, the public has become slightly less inclined to believe that climate change is happening. About half of adults say extreme heat has had a major impact on their electricity bills, while 3 in 10 say the same about their outdoor activities. Fewer report major impacts on their exercise routines, sleep, pets, travel or vacation plans, the timing of events like weddings or reunions, or their job or commute. Ninety percent of adults say extreme heat has had at least a minor impact on their lives, up from 83% two years ago.

Built for backup, contracted to run: China’s coal support system risks crowding out clean power, Qin et al., The Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air and Global Energy Monitor

New coal power plants entering operation in China reached the highest first-half year level since 2016, with 10 GW entering operation for every 1 GW retired, despite a policy shift towards tighter control of new project approvals. China commissioned 30 GW of new coal power, up 43% from last year, while retiring only 2.7 GW. Another 25.4 GW started construction; Coal power generation rebounded 3.4% year-on-year in H1 2026, reversing the 2025 decline. The rapid expansion of coal power capacity led to worsening oversupply, reflected both in the increase of wasted wind and solar generation and in falling utilization of coal power plants; The rebound was not evidence of a broad return to coal following LNG shipping disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz. China’s combined domestic coal production and imports in fact fell by 1.4% year-on-year in H1 2026, rather than expanding in response to the external energy shock. Growth in clean energy supply and electrification helped offset the fall in oil supply and limit increases in fossil fuel consumption; Estimated wind and solar curtailment, including both reported and unreported curtailment, reached 360 TWh in H1 2026, up 49% year-on-year. Had this electricity been absorbed, the additional power supply could have met all demand growth and allowed coal power generation to fall.

State of the Climate in 2025, Blunden et al., American Meteorological Society

The authors provide a comprehensive, observation-based assessment of Earth’s climate system that not only documents what happened during a given year (e.g., 2025), but also how that year compares to previous years in the observational record. Thus, it is critical to have continuous, long-term observations of various components of the Earth system to document variability and change over time. Many of these observations, both current and historical, are also assimilated into various reanalysis products (e.g., ERA5 and MERRA-2), which are physically constrained representations of the Earth system and are used extensively throughout the State of the Climate report. Reanalyzes are particularly useful in regions where in situ and satellite observations are sparse.

2026 Progress report: National adaptation plan (New Zealand), He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission

The author's assessment of progress found that adaptation is not keeping pace with escalating climate risks in Aotearoa New Zealand, and in some cases is slipping further behind. This reflects their 2024 finding, that the work underway is not enough to make the country resilient to current pressures, let alone into future decades. The progress made since 2024 has been uneven and serious gaps remain. This matters, critically. As climate effects intensify, weaknesses in the country’s response increase in consequence – as harm and costs experienced by families, communities, workers and businesses across the motu. Aotearoa New Zealand is – too often – paying to react and recover after damage occurs, rather than preparing ahead of time.

Opposition to Local Data Centers Rises Sharply, The Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania

The survey was conducted among a nationally representative sample of 1,320 U.S. adult citizens from June 16-July 19, 2026. The authors found that three in five Americans (61%) now somewhat or strongly oppose the construction of new data centers in their area, up from 49% in the survey ending in March; majorities of Democrats (69%), Republicans (54%) and independents (53%) oppose new local data centers. Opposition is highest among young adults under 30 (70%) and declines to 57% among those 65 and older, the inverse of what one might expect for a new technology; 39% expect AI’s effect on the United States to be negative over the next decade, against 18% who expect it to be positive, unchanged from the spring. Two-thirds (68%) say the government has done “too little” to regulate AI; and across 13 areas, only medical research and discoveries draws a net-positive assessment (+41 points) in which the anticipated benefits of AI outweigh the expected negatives. The most negative areas are personal privacy and data security (-63 points), children’s safety online (-50 points), and employment and jobs (-46 points). About New Research

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The Democratic National Committee today greenlighted resolutions that call for abolishing ICE and implementing “full and consistent enforcement” of two federal statutes known as the Leahy law. The author of the law, former Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), has stated that it applies to Israel, as critics have long asserted.

Both resolutions were submitted by Michele Johnson, a DNC member from Louisiana, who spoke for them before the Thursday vote at the DNC’s Resolutions Committee meeting. Approval of the resolutions by the full DNC is expected at a closing session of the meeting in Austin on Saturday.

One resolution puts the DNC on record that it “urges Democratic members of Congress to craft legislation abolishing ICE and enacting immigration reform that provides pathways to citizenship, protects workers, and ensures dignity for all impacted people.” The resolution also “urges Democratic members of Congress to pursue civil and criminal accountability for any federal agent, attorney, or official who lied under oath, misrepresented evidence, or gave false testimony regarding DHS conduct, and to remove qualified immunity and other protections shielding DHS and ICE personnel and subcontractors

who have injured protesters or journalists, fired into moving vehicles, or caused deaths in custody, whether of detained individuals, U.S. citizens, or immigrants regardless of nationality or documentation status.”

Johnson’s other resolution states that “the Democratic National Committee reaffirms its support for the full, consistent, and impartial enforcement of the Leahy Laws with respect to every recipient of United States security assistance, in every region of the world, without exception.” It adds that the DNC “calls for strengthened vetting capacity, clear remediation standards, and regular public reporting on the

implementation of the Leahy Laws by the Department of State and the Department of Defense,” and that the DNC “encourages Democratic members of Congress to conduct robust oversight of Leahy Law implementation and to support legislative measures that close documented enforcement gaps.”

Beginning early Thursday, before the vote on the resolutions, a mobile electronic billboard sponsored by RootsAction – saying “HEY DNC, UPHOLD THE LEAHY LAWS. SUPPORT HUMAN RIGHTS!” – circled the hotel where the DNC is meeting.

Sam Rosenthal, RootAction’s political director, was among the activists who attended the Resolutions Committee meeting. “These were twin victories for human rights, at home and abroad,” he said. “Approval of the resolutions for abolishing ICE and upholding the Leahy law point the way for the Democratic Party to move in directions consistent with what voters want. Getting sufficient turnout from the party’s base at election time will require a change in the approach of the party’s national leadership so that it is clearly responsive to the views of Democrats nationwide.”

For generations, Indigenous groups residing in coastal areas have harvested seagrass for various purposes, including food, medicine, and construction. For example, members of the Kwakwaka’wakw...

One parcel in New Mexico sold for $701 per acre in June. Analysts cited stronger bidder competition as the Bureau of Land Management prepares for another lease sale in Utah scheduled for Aug. 18.

Kate and Aaron are joined by Professor John Leshy, one of the nation’s top scholars of public lands law, to discuss a new essay of his that argues America’s public lands are entering a new Gilded Age, complete with robber barons, corruption, and deregulation.

We also talk about a new exposé revealing Doug Burgum to be a really bad boss who’s breaking the law, and about Border Patrol breaking ground inside Big Bend National Park.

News

• Inside Doug Burgum’s rocky tenure at Interior – POLITICO
• “Warfare on the People.” Big Bend Residents Fear the Border Wall Will Cut Off Public Lands. – Outside
• Mapping it out: onX tool connects Montanans to public land comment opportunities – Bozeman Daily Chronicle

Resources

• On Shaky Ground: America’s Public Lands Face an Uncertain Future 
• Keep Parks Public Tour — RSVP to Tucson!
• On Common Ground: An American Inheritance
• Watch this episode on YouTube

Produced by Aaron Weiss, Lauren Bogard, Kate Groetzinger, and Lilly Bock-Brownstein
Feedback: podcast@westernpriorities.org
Music: Purple Planet
Featured image: Basin and Range National Monument; Source: BLM Photo Bob Wick

The post Are America’s public lands entering a new Gilded Age? appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

This article It’s time for movements to rethink social media was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

Last September I made a short video that was by far the most viral piece of content I’ve ever put out.

I can’t trace all the views, but at least a million people watched it across Instagram and TikTok, and possibly elsewhere. Neighbors in Athens, Greece told me they’d come across my face in their feed; Chinese accounts captioned the video and reposted it. I felt like I’d made a dent in the universe and — I’m not going to lie — a little bit special.

The video wasn’t pop wisdom or a dance routine. It had a job to do: get people to sign a petition, created by DiEM25 and Progressive International, to block Germany’s genocide-enabling former foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, from becoming president of the U.N. General Assembly. 

And on that, it failed. By the end of my week of internet mini-fame, the number of signatures had barely shifted. It had 49,000 signatures that July, two months before I posted. I watched it closely that week, and it barely moved.  Baerbock got the job – the petition now asks her to resign. 

I know a few things about digital communication. For two decades it’s been a key part of what I do — I’ve written about it, researched it, advised movements on it. The petition wasn’t mine, but the video was. And I couldn’t make it work. 

Maybe the video could have been packaged better, or the petition link made easier to find. Maybe my pitch was entertaining but not compelling. Maybe a petition was never the right vehicle for stopping Baerbock in the first place.

My organizer friends thought it went great. They congratulated me on the numbers. Nobody asked about the petition.

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That last part is what’s bothered me since. Because if a million views and no signatures is considered a success, we’re measuring the wrong thing.

And that opens up a bigger question, one I don’t think we ask often enough: When we use social media in our organizing, what are we actually doing? Is it worth the time we put into it? And is there a way of doing it that actually builds something?

Why we’re all on there anyway

Social media is now a given for organizers, and for good reason. We’ve been using it to fill public squares for well over a decade, from Occupy to Black Lives Matter to last year’s Gen Z protests across the Global South. To get around media blackouts and show the world what power does when it thinks no one’s filming, from Ferguson to Gaza. To make and sink political careers. To tank the stock prices of corporations that deserve it. 

Social media has changed how we communicate. It’s forced us to be quicker, sharper and more entertaining. Because attention is scarce — and we’re competing for it against everything else.

But beneath all of this, most of us are working from the same assumption: that platforms are where the work happens. That the posting is the organizing. That if we get the reach, the rest will follow.

What changed

That assumption has a history. Those of us who were around in 2011 will remember that social media held a different kind of promise. We thought we could topple governments and kings, if only we could get enough people onto the streets. And social media was very good at getting people onto the streets, as long as the anger was already there.

Sometimes that was enough. Tunisian dictator Ben Ali went. Egyptian dictator Mubarak went. But when it didn’t hold — when Occupy dissolved, when Tahrir Square gave way to a military government, when the squares emptied — we told ourselves it wasn’t the right moment, or that the repression was too heavy.

My sense is that a lot of us still carry that same idealism about social media’s power. But two things have changed since then.

The first is that governments got very good at pushing us back. They stifle protest at the source now, with monitoring, arrests and social media operations of their own. Movements can still get around censorship, and often do. But the state has learned to work on the same terrain. Amnesty International has documented how last year Kenyan authorities used the same platforms as the Gen Z movement to threaten and discredit organizers.  And where that isn’t enough, the state can reach for the platform itself — banning it, as Nepal did in 2025, or changing who owns it, as happened with TikTok in the U.S.

The second is that the platforms themselves changed shape. We went from follower feeds to recommendation feeds. What you post no longer goes to the people who chose to hear from you — it goes wherever the algorithm sends it, if it goes anywhere at all. Attention is concentrated on a handful of corporate platforms whose incentive is to keep you scrolling, not to help you organize.

That second shift is the one we’ve underrated in terms of its impact on our ability to organize. In 2011 we posted, our followers saw it and we organized in the replies — as I did during the Athens riots. Distribution and coordination happened in the same place, at the same time.

Comments still exist, of course. But when a post reaches few of your followers, and reaches strangers instead, the reply thread stops being a place where a group can form. It becomes a place where individuals arrive one at a time and leave the same way.

And yet we still use these platforms like it’s 2011. We shoot things off into the ether and hope something will stick — that people will hear our calls to rise up and somehow self-organize. Or that if we point at a problem often enough, everyone will arrive at the same solutions we did. And each time something or someone does break through, it feels like luck.

That doesn’t mean a post can’t start something. In India, after the chief justice called unemployed young people cockroaches, a student in Boston asked on social media what would happen if all the cockroaches came together. Within weeks the Cockroach Party had formed, with millions of followers and protests in several states, and almost no organizing in between. That was three months ago. They have since won a major victory, but nobody yet knows what it will become.

A spontaneous movement can still form from social media. You just can’t plan for it, and you can’t repeat it. And yet a lot of what we do is built on waiting for it.

The tools changed. Our habits didn’t.

Why we didn’t change with them

In some ways this is understandable. Social media is the shiniest and most responsive part of our toolkit. It’s free. We all know how to use it. We understand the algorithms, the buzzwords, the memes, how to play the game. And above all, it answers immediately.

Nothing else in organizing does that. A meeting doesn’t tell you how it went. A training doesn’t report back for six months. And a list doesn’t tell you anything at all until you ask it to do something.

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So we borrow like crazy from the people for whom social media genuinely is the whole job: activist influencers. They build an audience out of perceived closeness — a parasocial relationship, the illusion of intimacy and reciprocity. That’s a real skill, and it has its uses. But an audience is only enough if attention is the goal. It isn’t a base. Nobody shows up on a Tuesday night because they feel close to someone on a screen. 

Meanwhile, the dull part of the work gets skipped — the meetings, the follow-up calls, the trainings, the arguments about what we’re actually demanding and from whom. And that’s the part that turns attention into power. As Zeynep Tufekci argues, social media allows networked movements to reach scale without building the capacity that scale used to require.

You can see what that costs. In Bangladesh, Nepal and Madagascar, protests driven by social media brought governments down — but in each case, what filled the space was something that already existed. An established party in Dhaka, a party formed three years earlier in Kathmandu, the army in Antananarivo. Not the movements themselves.

Worse, I think our use of these platforms has begun to shape our strategy. We optimize for what the platform rewards, because that’s the number that gets sent straight back to us. The silent but vital parts of the organizing work get subtly deprioritized — or stop happening at all.

What it looks like when someone gets it right

In February 2025, Americans angry about Elon Musk’s growing political influence started posting about his company, Tesla. Selling their cars, filming these sales and complaining online. It could have stayed there.

What moved it off the feed was small and specific. A Boston University professor saw a showroom protest in New York City run by the group Rise and Resist, held the same action in her own city and posted about it on Bluesky. Others copied her. A few people built a website and a map, and the whole thing ran under one hashtag: #TeslaTakedown. 

Tesla’s weak spot was its showrooms: physical places, with addresses and opening hours, belonging to a company whose value rested heavily on its founder’s reputation. Organizers picked a time and stuck to it — they protested at the same place, every week. By March there were protests at Tesla showrooms in more than 250 cities across the globe.

Previous Coverage

The real reason Musk retreated

The organizers’ own account of why it worked comes down to two things: Presence beats planning, and regularity builds community. That isn‘t an argument against strategy — choosing the showrooms was a strategy, and a good one. It’s an argument against making people wait while you perfect it. In a moment of anger, people didn’t need a planning document. They needed to be told where to go and what to do.

And the sign-ups ran through Action Network, the organizing platform. Not through the comments of the movement’s social media posts. So when those posts stopped performing, the movement still had its list.

Morocco’s Gen Z protests are another example of how to do it right. Last year brought a wave of protests in Morocco, against corruption, inequality and the state of public services. The movement called itself GenZ 212, after Morocco’s country code.

It got the word out on Instagram and TikTok, but it used the communications platform Discord as its backbone. People were sorted into regional channels, reflecting where they actually lived, and decisions were taken in nightly discussions that ended in votes. One estimate put the number of people on the channels at 250,000 last October.

It was untidy; it was sometimes chaotic. But Discord, which has no recommendation feed, did something for Morocco’s protesters that a feed couldn’t: It enabled them to make decisions under pressure, as a group, and to adapt. When the first days brought arrests, the movement moved its protests into working-class neighborhoods. When deaths followed police intervention, members reconvened to establish what had actually happened and to argue for peaceful protest, countering attempts to paint them as reckless.

Like most of the major Gen Z movements we’ve seen, GenZ 212 was leaderless and decentralized. The distinction here isn’t leaders versus no leaders. It’s whether there’s a room where a question can be settled and a decision can be made.

What these movements have in common

One word: a handoff.

In both cases organizers recruited on social media, just as in 2011. But they didn’t stay there. They moved people quickly into spaces they controlled. Here it happened to be Action Network and Discord; it could as easily have been a mailing list, a forum, a group chat or a room with chairs in it. What matters is that it wasn’t an algorithmic feed.

This reframes the arguments we keep having about which social media platforms to be on and which to quit. Platforms rise and fall, and whichever one holds the attention next, it will still only be the top of the funnel. The better question is: What does a movement need to own so that an algorithm change, or a ban, can’t decapitate it?

Case in point: The Gen Z movement in Nepal, operating on Discord, was able to simply route around the sweeping government ban of social media platforms last year. And the movement brought the government down. 

The handoff has to be engineered

But there’s a catch to the handoff: The architecture of the platforms works against you.

Platforms downrate anything that makes people leave the app — that’s the one behavior the whole system is built to prevent.  Their architecture says it plainly: Instagram doesn’t let you put a link in a caption. TikTok confines them to your bio. And on Facebook, posts containing a link have gone from about one in seven to one in 66 — by Meta’s own count.

So the handoff can’t be an afterthought. It has to be designed as carefully and deliberately as the hook.

That means putting your ask wherever the platform allows it — the profile link, the first reply — and telling people where it is, because they won’t hunt for it. It means ideally making the destination a date (“we’re on a call Thursday at 7 p.m.”) rather than a page. It means writing the follow-up before you post, because most sign-ups go cold in the first few days if nothing lands in their inbox. And it means one named person owning what happens next — one person who responds to the people who signed up, who runs the call, who they can reply to and get an answer.

Be clear about what you’re counting

The other half is measurement, and it’s the half we get wrong most often. The platforms hand us a pile of data for free, and we take it, because it’s there. But going viral is not a win. It was never the goal.

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So decide what you’re counting before you publish, and make it something on the other side of the handoff: click-through from the clip to the sign-ups, attendance or completed actions. Set a target. And when the numbers that come back are poor, fix the handoff rather than the hook. 

If your video gets 200,000 views and 40 signups, the problem probably wasn’t the video. Look at what you asked people to do, whether they could find it and what arrived once they’d done it. Every piece of content needs somewhere to go.

Back to the video

My petition problem may not have been the hook. It may have been the thinness of what was behind it.

A form is fine. Tesla Takedown used one. But that form led to a protest at a named showroom at a named time, run by a host with people behind them. Mine led to a signature. If even a fraction of the people who saw that video had been given something more to do  — a call the following week, run by someone with a name, with one clear task at the end of it  — there would have been something left when the attention moved on.

Work out the handoff before you work out the hook. That‘s the whole lesson, and it took me a million views to learn it.

This article It’s time for movements to rethink social media was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

On Sept. 16, 2025, an estimated 100,000 people flooded the streets of Cuenca, Ecuador’s third-most populous city, in one of the largest environmental mobilizations in the country’s recent history. Protesters marched under a simple slogan: “We are water.”

The demonstration was aimed at stopping mining projects in Quimsacocha, a fragile, high-altitude ecosystem that supplies water to hundreds of thousands of people across southern Ecuador. But beneath the immediate conflict over mining lies a deeper struggle over how people understand their relationship with the natural world.

For decades Ecuador has been at the center of a global experiment. In 2008 it became the first country in the world to recognize the Rights of Nature in its Constitution, transforming ideas rooted in Indigenous cosmologies into enforceable legal principles. Yet translating those ideas into political reality has proven far more difficult than writing them into law.

To understand how environmental movements bridge radically different worldviews — from Indigenous understandings of territory to the language of constitutional law, science, and public policy — I spoke with David Fajardo Torres, an environmental activist, lawyer, and member of Yasunidos, a movement defending Ecuador’s ecosystems from extractive industries.

Our conversation explored how narratives shape environmental conflicts, why metaphors such as “We are water” can mobilize entire communities, and what Ecuador’s experience reveals about the challenges of communicating across competing visions of nature, development, and progress.

This interview was conducted during a research visit in Ecuador in November 2025, carried out as part of the research field work for a Ph.D. dissertation in philosophy and social communication.

Environmental movements often struggle to turn complex ecological issues into stories that people can relate to. Yet in Cuenca the slogan “We are water” helped mobilize more than 100,000 people. What makes that metaphor so powerful?

In Cuenca one of our most powerful narratives connects the city — not merely as an urban center, but as a territory shaped by a long and ancient history — to water. We are water people. That idea has become the central metaphor that unites communities and guides our resistance to mining projects.

These projects threaten the páramos, the high-altitude Andean ecosystems that serve as natural water reservoirs. The páramos regulate water flows, sustain extraordinary biodiversity, and supply freshwater not only to Cuenca, but also to the Amazon basin and Ecuador’s Pacific coast.

El Cajas National Park is a high-altitude wetland area with many lakes, streams, and páramo ecosystems that store and filter water. Photo by Alice Deliau.

For us the phrase “We are water” is both symbolic and literal. Human beings are made largely of water, but the expression goes beyond biology. It reflects how we understand ourselves: as part of rivers, lakes, forests, and páramos rather than separate from them. It allows us to connect three dimensions of Cuenca at once — Cuenca as a city, Cuenca as a territory, and Cuenca as an ecosystem.

This narrative has proven remarkably effective. During the mass mobilization in September, many people referred to the protest as Cuenca’s Fifth River, a reference to the city’s historic nickname, Santa Ana de los Cuatro Ríos — the City of Four Rivers. The metaphor captured something deeper than political opposition to mining. It expressed a biocultural identity in which water is not merely a resource but a defining part of who we are. Without its rivers, Cuenca would not exist.

On Sept. 16, 2025, an estimated 100,000 people flooded the streets of Cuenca with the message “Kimsa cocha no se toca” (“Quimsacocha Is Not to Be Touched”), uniting communities to protect one of Ecuador’s most important water sources from pollution from mining activities. Photo by Alice Deliau.

Cuenca’s identity is rooted in conflict between nature and industry?

Cuenca was founded three times: first by the Cañari people, then by the Incas, and later by the Spanish colonizers. Despite these very different civilizations, all three settlements shared one essential foundation: water.

The valley is crossed by four rivers and countless smaller waterways known as quebradas, which remain just as important to the region’s ecological health. Water has shaped every chapter of Cuenca’s history and every layer of its identity.

This is not a new conflict. As early as the colonial period, local authorities faced a choice between gold and water. Extracting mineral wealth often threatened the water sources on which communities depended. Time and again, Cuenca chose water.

That choice continues today. For more than three decades, local communities have defended water sources in areas such as Quimsacocha and Río Blanco against mining projects, gradually building support far beyond rural communities and into the city itself.

In 2021 nearly 80% of voters in a local referendum supported a ban on mining in the páramos that supply water to the region. Four years later, tens of thousands of people returned to the streets to reaffirm that decision. For us this is not simply an environmental debate. Water remains the foundation of our identity, and defending it means defending the future of Cuenca itself.

Cuenca, Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. During the mass mobilization in September 2025, many people referred to the protest as Cuenca’s Fifth River, a reference to the city’s historic, colonial nickname, Santa Ana de los Cuatro Ríos — the City of Four Rivers. Photo by Alice Deliau.

One of the recurring tensions in environmental politics is whether nature should be protected because it serves human needs (anthropocentric view), or because it possesses intrinsic value and rights of its own (biocentric). Is this a real conflict, or are we dealing with different ways of understanding the same relationship between humans and nature?

That’s a very good question. In Ecuador we are increasingly realizing that it is impossible to fulfill human rights without also respecting the rights of nature. Most human rights ultimately depend on healthy ecosystems.

If we destroy the ecosystems on which we depend, we undermine the very conditions that make a dignified life possible. For us, that is the central horizon: living with dignity.

This idea is deeply connected to the philosophy of Sumak Kawsay. It is often translated as “good living,” but that translation is incomplete. A better interpretation would be vivir en plenitud — living in fullness or living in harmony. At its core, Sumak Kawsay is about flourishing alongside nature, not apart from it.

From this perspective, there is no fundamental separation between humanity and nature. We are one species within a much larger web of life. Ecology, after all, is the sum of the relationships that sustain life on this planet. Every species, every ecosystem, plays a role within that network.

The problem is that modern capitalist societies have encouraged us to see not only a distinction between humans and nature, but a hierarchy. Humans are placed at the top, while nature is reduced to an object that exists to serve our needs.

You mentioned anthropocentrism and biocentrism. In Ecuador, however, we increasingly speak about ecocentrism. Ecocentrism shifts the focus away from individual actors — whether humans or nature — and toward the relationships that connect them. It is not about separating humanity from nature, but about understanding the complex web of relationships that makes life possible.

Scientific concepts such as ecology increasingly emphasize relationships, ideas that seem to resonate with many Indigenous worldviews. Can scientific language serve as a bridge between Indigenous knowledge and the modern industrial world?

It can, and I think it is one of the keys — but not the only one. In many cases Western science is only now beginning to understand ideas that Indigenous peoples have lived with for centuries: the importance of relationships, diversity, and interdependence. The difference is that modern science often seeks universal explanations, a single framework capable of describing the world as a whole.

Indigenous worldviews tend to operate differently. They do not necessarily aspire to explain everything through one universal lens. Even among Indigenous peoples, there is enormous diversity. The Shuar and the Amazonian Kichwa, for example, have distinct ways of understanding the world.

For the Shuar, the forest is not an external environment but a community to which they belong. The Amazon is so rich and biodiverse that it provides everything necessary for life. Because they see themselves as part of that living system, the goal is not endless accumulation or growth but maintaining the relationships that sustain life.

Mining companies often argue that modern science allows them to extract resources responsibly. They present environmental studies and technical expertise as evidence that mining can coexist with ecological protection. How persuasive is that narrative?

One of the biggest mistakes is to focus only on what can be measured. Statistics and technical reports are important, but they never tell the whole story.

In Ecuador we work with a concept known as the dialogue of knowledges — a conversation between different ways of understanding the world. This idea is reflected in our Constitution, particularly in the articles recognizing the Rights of Nature.

Take the concept of Pachamama. It is often translated as “Mother Earth,” but that translation is incomplete. Pacha refers not only to the Earth, but to the space-time in which life unfolds — the Earth, the stars, the sun, the moon, and the cycles that connect them. Mama means mother. In that sense, Pachamama is closer to a living cosmos than to a simple environmental concept.

Nature, by contrast, is a concept that emphasizes relationships. Those relationships are not confined to the planet itself. Life on Earth depends on the sun, the moon, and countless natural cycles that can be observed scientifically — from the tides to seasonal rhythms. In Ecuador’s Constitution, Pachamama and nature are treated as equivalent concepts, allowing us to defend the Rights of Nature through both scientific and Indigenous knowledge.

As a lawyer specializing in the Rights of Nature, I build cases using multiple forms of knowledge. We rely on science, Indigenous knowledge, and the knowledge of rural and peasant communities, all of which are essential for understanding and defending ecosystems.

The problem is that many mining companies rely on a very narrow understanding of science. Their science is designed primarily to facilitate extraction and economic growth. It leaves little room for dialogue between different ways of knowing.

I am not criticizing science itself. There is a science that seeks to understand nature, question its own assumptions, and engage with other forms of knowledge. That kind of science is indispensable. But there is also a science that serves capital, markets, and extractive industries. The challenge is to distinguish between the two.

For us, the Rights of Nature are possible only through a genuine dialogue between scientific and Indigenous knowledge. Otherwise we risk reducing Pachamama to a slogan or falling into simplistic narratives about nature that fail to address the complexity of the living world.

Rivers Puyo and Pastaza, November 2025. Puyo and Pastaza rivers support Amazonian aquatic ecosystems: provide habitats for fish, amphibians, insects, and riverside plants. They also help maintain rainforest biodiversity, but are sensitive to pollution, deforestation, and urban growth. Photo by Alice Deliau.

What do you mean by the narrow narrative of Pachamamismo?

For us, Pachamamismo can become a shallow narrative when it reduces complex realities to slogans. Much of the contemporary discourse around Pachamama risks becoming symbolic rather than transformative.

To challenge the narratives of mining companies and extractive industries, we need something deeper: a genuine dialogue between different forms of knowledge. And when I speak of science, I do not mean only biology or physics. I also mean anthropology, sociology, law, and other disciplines. Indigenous peoples, too, possess their own systems of knowledge, law, and social organization. What matters is the conversation between them.

This is important because knowledge itself is never fixed. What a society considers rational, scientific, or legitimate changes over time. The challenge is not to replace one worldview with another, but to create a dialogue between them.

At the heart of the conflict over mining and extractivism lies a struggle between two competing visions of development. One assumes that development follows a universal path, with nature treated primarily as a resource and humans placed above it. The other begins from a different premise: that humans are part of nature and that development should strengthen, rather than undermine, the ecological relationships on which life depends.

For us the key question is not whether development should occur, but what role human societies should play within the ecosystems they inhabit. The answer will be different in every territory. The ecological realities of Cuenca are not the same as those of Poland, just as their histories and relationships with nature are different.

In Cuenca our responsibility is to protect water sources, páramos, rivers, and lakes. That requires adapting our institutions and planning systems to ecological realities rather than forcing ecosystems to adapt to economic demands.

Today, we have powerful tools that help us think this way. The Ecosystem Approach developed by the IUCN and the concept of planetary boundaries developed by the Stockholm Resilience Centre both remind us that human societies operate within ecological limits. Those limits are not obstacles to development; they are the conditions that make life possible.

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The post We Are Water: Metaphor As a Tool for Environmental Policies Communication appeared first on The Revelator.

OATI seeks federal funding for widespread deployment of dynamic line rating software, near-real-time inter-regional coordination and AI-enhanced resource dispatch — none of which requires new poles or wires, the company says.

By WildMon, August 2026Across Latin America, thousands of autonomous recording devices are capturing the sounds of forests every day. Hidden within these recordings is valuable information about...

Residents in a Yorkshire Wolds village have asked the prime minister for help in their opposition to local gas drilling plans.

Foxholes parish council and the community campaign group have written to Andy Burnham outlining their fears about proposals by Egdon Resources to explore for gas on the edge of their village.

Photo: DrillOrDrop

The application seeks to drill through a principal chalk aquifer that supplies water to 900,000 people. The proposed site is in a productive farming area. It is also near the soon-to-be designated Yorkshire Wolds National Landscape, which will give the area the protection and status of a national park.

The letter said Egdon’s application, to be decided by North Yorkshire Council, has raised concerns about strategic water resources, food security, climate change, nature recovery and economic resilience.

It said these were national concerns:

“The Yorkshire Wolds are a remarkable natural asset. Protecting them should be a shared national responsibility.”

It added:

“While this is a local planning application, we believe it raises issues of wider national importance concerning water security, climate resilience, food production, nature recovery and the future direction of energy policy”.

The letter’s signatories, David Eddy, chair of Foxholes with Butterwick Parish Council, and Laura Bell, campaign lead of the Drawing a Line in the Chalk campaign, asked Mr Burnham to:

• Ensure nationally-important groundwater resources, chalk streams and agricultural landscapes received appropriate protection in planning and environmental decision-making
• Ensure that the most up to date scientific evidence was properly considered where development could affect strategic water resources
• Clarify how further fossil fuel exploration was being reconciled with commitments on climate change, nature recovery, food security and resilience
• Meet representatives of the parish council and Drawing a Line in the Chalk campaign

The letter, published online today, welcomed the principle, supported by government, of empowering communities and ensuring that local voices were heard in decision-making:

“We … respectfully ask that it is applied to communities such as ours, where residents are seeking reassurance that decisions affecting essential natural resources are being made using the best available evidence and with proper regard to long term consequences.”

The letter said the protection of water resources from the Yorkshire Wolds chalk aquifer “must be considered a matter of national resilience”.

It also said:

“The Yorkshire Wolds are also a highly productive agricultural landscape. The farms and food businesses that operate here contribute to the nation’s food supply at a time when the Climate Change Committee has highlighted the growing risks that climate change poses to food security and the need to strengthen resilience across our food system.

“Protecting the natural systems that underpin agriculture, particularly clean and reliable water supplies, healthy soils and functioning ecosystems is therefore not simply an environmental concern. It is an issue of economic resilience and national security.”

Mr Eddy and Ms Bell said:

“Residents are not opposed to a secure energy future, although renewables are clearly the way forward here. They are asking that decisions made today do not compromise the water, landscapes, food producing capacity, ecosystems and tourist activity upon which tomorrow’s generations will rely.”

They added that Egdon’s estimates suggested the expected gas resource at Foxholes was the equivalent of six days UK gas use in winter:

“Hardly energy security, particularly given it will be sold on the international markets.”

They said:

“Communities are entitled to ask whether new fossil fuel exploration in environmentally sensitive locations is consistent with wider commitments on climate change, biodiversity recovery, water resilience and long-term energy strategy.”

They said local concerns about the proposal included:

• Has the latest geological and groundwater evidence been fully incorporated into decision-making?
• Have the risks to the principal chalk aquifer, including contamination pathways, been adequately assessed?
• Are the full climate implications of fossil fuel extraction being properly considered?
• Do existing planning and permitting regulations protect sufficiently nationally-important water resources, landscape and ecosystems?

The letter stated:

“The issue is not simply whether one exploratory well proceeds. It is whether our planning and regulatory systems are sufficiently robust to protect the natural assets upon which communities, businesses, agriculture and future generations depend.

“In order to enable communities to engage fully with such planning applications, we need to ensure that within the planning process the most up-to-date scientific data is also made available to those affected by the planning applications to create a level playing field.

“And that equality of representation is further supplemented by increased time at the public planning committee meetings where applications are to be heard.”

Starting on Monday, about 10,000 government negotiators, scientists, journalists and campaigners will gather at a purpose-built venue in a national park in Mongolia’s capital Ulaanbaatar to discuss how to stop land turning into desert as the world warms.

Drought is currently sweeping much of the Northern hemisphere, leaving normally green urban parks looking like dry savannah, causing crops to fail, food prices to rise and billions to be shaved off economic output. 

On Wednesday, Britain’s prime minister chaired an emergency meeting of the government’s Cobra committee. These are usually reserved for wars, terrorist attacks, riots and pandemics – but this one was on the extreme heat and drought the UK has been suffering since May. 

With many countries facing far worse with fewer resources than the UK, the issues to be discussed at the UN’s COP17 summit in Mongolia – often overlooked – should be nearer the top of policy-makers minds.

But what is COP17?  What will be decided and announced there over the next two weeks? How does it relate to climate change and how will it help restore the lands on which we all rely for our food, water and other essential resources? Climate Home News explains all below.

What is COP17?

It is the conference of parties (COP) to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). The parties are 196 governments, which includes all of the countries recognised by the UN.

The convention was conceived at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, at the same time as the other two larger “Rio trio” conventions on climate and biodiversity. 

While the climate convention’s COP takes place every year, the UNCCD COP happens only once every two years. COP17 will be its seventeenth gathering.

Negotiators at COP16 in Riyadh (Photo: IISD/ENB | Anastasia Rodopoulou) What is desertification?

It is the process by which land degrades and becomes more like a desert, making it harder – and sometimes impossible – to grow crops or graze livestock there.

Climate change and other human activities – like excessive irrigation which depletes ground water – are making this process worse, causing poverty, hunger, health problems, forced migration and loss of species.

It’s a widespread problem. The UN estimates that half a billion people live within areas that have experienced desertification since the 1980s and that two-fifths of the world’s land is degraded.

What has it got to do with climate change?

The planet’s climate is heating up, mainly due to humans burning fossil fuels, and drying out its land. This kills plants and exposes the soil which can then be blown away by wind and washed away by water.

Without a top layer of soil, plants struggle to grow again and the land gets closer to being a desert. So combating desertification is a way of adapting to climate change.

It is also a way of lessening the pace of climate change, as land degradation releases carbon dioxide previously stored in healthy soils and plants.

What will be negotiated at COP17?

The main issue is what form a new initiative to tackle drought could take. The last COP saw Africa push hard for this to be a protocol – a kind of binding sub-treaty to the UNCCD.

But the US, Europe, Argentina and others argued that would take too long to set up, cost too much and take money away from what can be spent on the ground. They prefer a legally weaker alternative – a framework instead of a protocol. 

Negotiations went late into the last night of talks in Riyadh, with the Saudis hosting informal consultations, but eventually governments had to agree to disagree and pick up talks again in Ulaanbaatar. 

As Earth dries out, countries fail to reach drought agreement

Governments will also negotiate a new policy on protecting rangelands and pastoralists from degradation. Rangelands are areas where animals graze. They cover around half the Earth’s land and include almost everything other than forest, deserts, farms, glaciers and cities. Pastoralists are people who herd animals on these rangelands, often moving from place to place to find fresh pasture. 

COP17 host country Mongolia has a lot of both – and pushed successfully for the UN to declare 2026 the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists. It is keen to agree a decision at COP17 bringing those issues more to the forefront of the UNCCD.

Negotiators will also debate the UNCCD’s post-2030 strategic framework, which they hope to adopt at COP18 in 2028. Campaign groups like the World Wildlife Fund want a stronger focus on biodiversity and nature-positive food systems.

What will happen when?

The COP will formally open with a ceremony on Monday August 17, followed by opening statements by governments and the adoption of the agenda.

Negotiations will begin, mostly behind closed doors for two weeks until the closing plenaries on Friday August 28.

While talks rumble on in the background, the second week will see senior government representatives including ministers get involved, with a “high-level segment” running from August 24-26.

A delegate at COP16 in Riyadh (Photo: IISD/ENB | Anastasia Rodopoulou)

They will discuss issues like drought resilience, finance and pastoralist communities. This is likely to be when any announcements – of new funding, for instance – are made.

On Monday August 24, there will also be an open dialogue between government officials and civil society members. Here, local practitioners are likely to share stories of how they are helping their communities reverse land degradation. UNCCD prides itself on being a bottom-up convention.

Unlike climate COPs, which often end a day or two over time, UNCCD COPs usually finish on the evening of their last day and – while they have gone late into the night – have never run into the next day.

What else should we watch out for?

At the last COP two years ago, host Saudi Arabia led the creation of an initiative called the Riyadh Global Drought Resilience Partnership to help 80 of the poorest nations deal with drought. 

It received $12 billion in pledges, mainly from Gulf-based development finance institutions. Saudi Arabia is expected to report back on whether these pledges have been delivered and how the money will reach those in need now.

There are also hopes that governments will announce financial support for Mongolia’s Rangelands Flagship Initiative, which aims to mobilise investment in projects to fight land degradation.

Who will preside over COP17?

While the last five and the next two climate COPs have been or will be presided over by men, COP17 will be woman-led with Mongolia’s foreign minister, Battsetseg Batmunkh, as president.

Mongolia’s foreign minister and COP17 president Battsetseg Batmunkh (Photo: Uugansukh Byamba)

This will also be the first COP for the UNCCD’s new executive director Yasmin Fouad. Before being appointed environment minister in her native Egypt, Fouad was a scientist and lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s special report on desertification. She played a key role at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt in 2022.

Although Saudi Arabia’s UNCCD COP presidency is ending, the Gulf power house will likely continue to be influential. It has supported the COP financially as part of the Riyadh-Ulaanbaatar action agenda and will be following up on initiatives announced two years ago.

While Saudi Arabia is often blamed for obstructing progress at climate talks, as a desert nation it is generally thought to have played a constructive role at UNCCD COPs.

What are the negotiating dynamics?

The UNCCD has six main negotiating groups: Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Northern Mediterranean, Central and Eastern Europe, and developed donor countries. Governments can also speak in their own capacities.

While divisions between the Global North and Global South do exist at UNCCD COPs, they are not as stark as at climate COPs. The Global South’s umbrella group – the G77 and China – usually only speaks on finance issues, on which developing countries tend to be united.

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Civil society groups are present but not as vocal or as confrontational as at climate COPs. There are generally no protests and campaigners tend to try to hold governments accountable more quietly. There are likely to be far fewer journalists than at climate COPs too.

What role will the US play?

While the US has left the UN’s climate convention, it remains in the UNCCD and is expected to bring a delegation of officials from its departments of agriculture and state. It is likely to resist any renewed push from Africa for a drought protocol.

The post Will the world’s drying lands get relief from COP17 in Mongolia? appeared first on Climate Home News.

• August 13, 2026

SA’s Increasing Energy Costs Put Pressure On The Most Vulnerable Among Us

As winter grips South Africa, millions of households are facing an impossible choice between keeping the lights on, putting food on the table, and paying essential expenses such as school fees and transport costs. The Green Connection believes that the country’s current tariff structure may be deepening poverty and inequality while forcing ordinary citizens to shoulder the cost of institutional failures over which they have no control.

“Every tariff increase could further entrench inequality and may place an unbearable burden on families already struggling to make ends meet. The problem extends beyond inflationary pressures, pointing to an electricity pricing system that compels consumers to pay for historical inefficiencies, cost overruns, governance failures, and mistakes associated with major infrastructure projects. For many South Africans, rising electricity tariffs are no longer simply a matter of economics but a matter of survival,” says The Green Connection’s Outreach Ambassador, Neville van Rooy.

Since 2015, Eskom has implemented 12 consecutive annual tariff increases – all approved by the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA). Electricity costs have dramatically increased over the past two decades, rising by around 190 per cent in real terms while continuing to outpace inflation. Meanwhile, in 2023, StatsSA reported that more than 23 million South Africans live below the lower-bound poverty threshold, highlighting concerns that rising living costs could place many households at risk of falling into extreme poverty.

The Green Connection notes that the pressure is especially severe for households that purchase electricity through municipalities. Unlike customers who buy electricity directly from Eskom, municipal consumers often pay additional charges because local authorities must recover the costs of maintaining infrastructure and funding essential public services. As a result, the same tariff increase can have vastly different consequences depending on where people live and how they access electricity.

Electricity transmission lines (left), Prepaid Electricity meter (right)

“The current situation demonstrates how deeply energy insecurity is affecting vulnerable communities. Winter has once again exposed the reality facing millions of people across South Africa. Families are being forced to make impossible decisions between electricity, food, medicine, school fees, and other basic necessities. These are not abstract policy discussions. These are real decisions being made in real homes every day,” adds van Rooy.

According to Lisa Makaula, Advocacy Lead at The Green Connection “Increasing tariffs, without addressing the underlying problems within the system, simply shifts responsibility onto those who are least able to bear the cost. The public may effectively be paying for a R54.7 billion mistake made by someone else. That is fundamentally unjust. Communities should not be expected to absorb the costs of poor planning, regulatory failures, or infrastructure mismanagement. Accountability must become part of the conversation.”

In January 2026, The Green Connection submitted recommendations to NERSA regarding Eskom’s Multi-Year Price Determination process – its second input into the MYPD6 evaluation process – emphasising the need for greater transparency, stronger public participation, and a comprehensive review of the country’s electricity pricing framework. The organisation argues that the existing approach is unsustainable because it relies heavily on assumptions linked to costly coal infrastructure projects, including Medupi and Kusile, despite the growing affordability of renewable energy technologies.

According to The Green Connection, the country’s continued reliance on fossil fuels is placing unnecessary pressure on consumers while slowing progress towards a more affordable and resilient energy future.

Makaula says that South Africa has reached a turning point in how electricity should be priced, and that the Electricity Pricing Policy – which has been approved by Cabinet – should be an opportunity to correct injustices of the past. She says, “We cannot continue relying on outdated models that ignore changing economic and technological realities, and that no longer serve the interests of the people. Renewable energy is already cheaper to build than new coal infrastructure, yet electricity pricing continues to be influenced by assumptions rooted in a broken system. The pricing overhaul should serve the public interest because access to affordable energy should not be a luxury but is essential for dignity, health, education, and economic opportunity.”

The Green Connection maintains that greater public participation is essential if long-term solutions are to be developed. According to the eco-justice organisation, communities must be given meaningful opportunities to participate in decisions that directly affect their lives. The country’s long-term energy security depends on embracing a just transition that prioritises affordability, sustainability, and accountability. This includes expanding investment in renewable energy, improving transparency within the electricity sector, and ensuring that vulnerable households are protected from excessive price increases.

The Green Connection also believes that the reform of South Africa’s Electricity Pricing Policy presents an important opportunity to align electricity pricing with current energy needs while shielding vulnerable households from escalating costs. This should include expanding and strengthening Free Basic Electricity provisions so that poor and working-class communities are better protected from tariff increases. Electricity pricing must support equitable access to energy and ensure that people are not penalised simply for remaining connected to the national grid.

As South Africans continue to confront rising living costs, The Green Connection is calling for urgent intervention to prevent even more households from being pushed into poverty. “The country is facing a defining moment,” says van Rooy. “We cannot build a just society while people are being forced to choose between warmth, food, education, and electricity. Access to affordable energy should strengthen communities rather than push them further into hardship. If we fail to act now, the social and economic consequences may affect future generations.”

Community comments:
Reinett Pullen, a small-scale fisherwoman and community activist from the Eastern Cape, believes that rising electricity costs are placing unbearable pressure on fishing communities that depend on reliable power to sustain their livelihoods. Deborah De Wee, environmental activist and founding member of the Spirit of Endeavour Fisherwomen in Doring Bay, is of the opinion that escalating electricity prices are driving already vulnerable fishing households deeper into poverty. Voices from Elands Bay echo these concerns, warning that unaffordable electricity tariffs may result in fishing families, pensioners, and unemployed residents struggling to survive as household costs continue to outpace already limited incomes.

Pullen says, “For fishing communities, electricity is not a luxury. It is the difference between putting food on the table and going hungry. We rely on electricity to preserve our catch, feed our families, and sustain our livelihoods, yet every increase in tariffs forces us to make impossible choices between electricity, food, education, and other basic necessities. A just energy transition cannot be measured only by market efficiency but also by whether it protects those who already carry the heaviest burden. We urge NERSA and government to put affordability, social justice, and meaningful public participation at the centre of all electricity reforms. Access to affordable electricity is not a privilege. It is essential to our dignity, our livelihoods, and our future.”

De Wee says, “In Doring Bay, our livelihoods depend on the sea, but our income is seasonal and uncertain. Electricity costs, however, continue to rise regardless of whether families have an income or not. Many households are surviving on social grants, while others are being forced to return to collecting firewood because electricity has become unaffordable. We are spending more money than ever for fewer units of power, and for many families, electricity now lasts only a few days before they have to buy again. This is not just an energy issue. It is a poverty issue, a dignity issue, and a community survival issue. Policymakers must recognise that people cannot continue to absorb endless increases while struggling to meet their most basic needs. Affordable electricity is essential if communities like ours are to have any chance of a secure and dignified future.”

Small-scale fisher in Elands Bay, Patrick Adonis says, “Electricity tariffs are currently beyond what we can afford. Our households are struggling, our expenses are greater than our income, so we have to stretch every cent as far as possible. But the electricity increases and tariffs have gone through the roof. This hits us very hard, and it is affecting us as the fishing community of Elands Bay in a very negative way.”

Elands Bay resident, pensioner Michelle Engelbrecht says, “Why is electricity becoming so expensive? As a pensioner and a resident of Cederberg and Elands Bay, I am deeply concerned because electricity prices have gone up again. For people – who are already struggling to make ends meet – our way of life is being affected. How are we supposed to survive with only R2,400 each month (the pensioner’s grant) when more than half is spent just on electricity? It is simply unliveable. Today, I am being forced to go back to the old days of cooking our daily food over an open fire, because I cannot afford electricity. It’s simply too expensive. And what about those who are currently unemployed? Even if you are working, all you can afford is electricity, because the price keeps rising higher and higher. Is there no solution? We cannot continue to live like this.”

Elands Bay fisherman, Andries Booysen says, “Government and NERSA should take a careful look at these electricity tariffs, because excessive price increases are bringing us to our knees. The cost of living is already too high. It’s not fair that we are already struggling to keep our heads above water, and now we also have to bear the burden of these additional increases.”

May 26, 2026 Past News WEST COAST SEISMIC SURVEY CASE MOVES CLOSER TO HEARING

This Energy Month, the legal challenge between Aukotowa Fisheries Primary Co-operative, The Green Connection, and Natural Justice (the Applicants), and the government together with TGS Geophysical Company UK Ltd (the Respondents), concerning authorisation for offshore seismic surveys along South Africa’s West Coast and Northern Cape coastline, has entered a critical new phase.

June 4, 2026 Latest News JUDGMENT RESERVED: HIGH COURT CONSIDERS ARGUMENTS CHALLENGING WEST COAST SEISMIC SURVEY APPROVAL

On Tuesday afternoon, the Western Cape High Court concluded a two-day hearing in the ongoing legal challenge by Aukotowa Fisheries Primary Co-operative, The Green Connection and Natural Justice (the Applicants) against the State and TGS Geophysical Company UK Ltd.

June 26, 2026 Latest News Saldanha Red Dust Emissions Decision Referred to National Environment Department

On 25 June 2026, The Green Connection welcomed the West Coast District Municipality’s decision to reject Transnet Port Terminals’ application to renew an Atmospheric Emission Licence (AEL) for the Saldanha Iron Ore Terminal.

June 30, 2026 Latest News (Op-Ed) Ska Fela Moya: Don’t Give Up, Just Breathe The Fumes

When a corporation wraps itself in the language of human endurance while polluting the air that athletes breathe, we should name it for what it is. A lost opportunity.

The post SA’s Increasing Energy Costs Put Pressure On The Most Vulnerable Among Us appeared first on The Green Connection.

The number of Cheaper Home Batteries installations has passed the half-million mark, a huge new milestone for the hugely successful rebate that is slashing bills and delivering "enormous benefits" to the grid.

The post Home battery rebate hits 500,000 milestone as households “take control” and deliver grid benefits appeared first on Renew Economy.

As droughts and wildfires damage economies, 350.org called on governments to push for a global tax treaty that can make big oil and gas corporations pay for mounting climate costs.

This week in New York, governments wrapped up negotiations for the UN Tax Convention with some governments strongly pushing for a global tax system aligned with the Paris Agreement and other environmental treaties, which can hold big polluters accountable for climate damage.

Campaigners called on governments to support a global tax on fossil fuel profits to raise critically needed funds to help communities and countries hit hardest by climate disasters and ensure a fast, fair shift to renewable energy. Revenues can also be directly channeled to households struggling to pay bills or put food on the table due to spikes in energy and food prices.

While tax treaty negotiations took a step in the right direction, several rich countries tried to halt progress by sidelining positions that push for stronger environmental taxation and taxing rights for developing countries.

Set to be finalized in 2027, the UN Tax Treaty talks will resume in December, with the inclusion of a “polluters pay” principle on the table. If adopted, a legally binding mechanism can be set up to collect a global tax on the profits of the world’s biggest oil and gas companies, which posted more than $90 billion dollars in profits in the second quarter of 2026 alone.

Lisa Rose, Campaigner at 350.org, said:

"Big Oil’s staggering second quarter earnings prove that the money we need for solutions exists, it’s just in the wrong hands. As droughts and heatwaves drain public budgets and push up the cost of living, countries need these funds now to protect people from extreme heat and rising bills. The momentum for permanently taxing fossil fuel profits is here. Our leaders must not squander this chance to put that wealth where it belongs – into building a safer and more livable planet, not a hotter and more destructive one.”

Josh Bayly, Director of Sustainability at Consumers International, said:

"Affordability stands out as the top consumer concern worldwide. Spiking energy and food prices have turned essential daily activities like cooking a meal or using the air conditioner into a dilemma for ordinary households. Globally, consumer trust in fossil fuel companies is low, and the outstanding profits they just posted only deepens this distrust. The UN Tax Convention gives governments a real chance to make the energy system fairer: tax excess profits to ease the burden on consumers.”

Notes to the Editor:

• Analysis by Eurodad and the Global Alliance for Tax Justice estimates that a 20% surtax on profits of the world's 100 largest oil and gas companies could have generated more than $1.08 trillion since the Paris Agreement was signed in 2015.

The planet’s oceans are an ally for fighting climate change. They absorb about a third of all human-generated carbon dioxide emissions. Many researchers are looking at ways to speed up the ocean’s ability to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

One proposed solution is to dump iron into ocean waters. This would trigger a bloom of phytoplankton—microscopic plant-like organisms that use sunlight to produce food—which would pull large amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

But research published in the journal Nature shows that not all places are equal when it comes to ocean iron fertilization (OIF). The carbon dioxide removal strategy could have unintended side-effects, and its ecological impact and effectiveness depends on where it is put into action.

The team from the University of California, Irvine has found that implementing OIF at higher latitudes rather than near the equator could reduce environmental impacts while still achieving removal of carbon dioxide

“The Central Pacific should be avoided for OIF due to the severe ecological risks, and the Southern Ocean may offer the best balance between carbon sequestration and ecological risk over decadal timescales,” says Jun Yu of UCI’s department of earth systems science.

 

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Artificial OIF is more than a theoretical concept, Yu says. Researchers have conducted field tests in the past. But those short-term OIF experiments were designed to see whether iron “is the limiting nutrient for phytoplankton growth in ocean regions, not to serve as a climate solution.”

To work as a climate solution, OIF would need to be done at much larger scales over longer periods. That could have unintended environmental consequences such as biodiversity loss, expansion of oxygen minimum zones, and disturbance of fish habitats. That’s because the added iron can deplete nutrients from water. That results in less zooplankton, tiny organisms that serve as food for fish and larger marine animals.

Yu, J. Keith Moore, Adam Martiny and colleagues set out to see which regions can achieve efficient, durable carbon dioxide removal, and what the ecological impact would be. They used an ocean iron fertilization model to analyze the fertilization potential and ecosystem impact across ten ocean biomes over 60 years.

The team found that OIF removed up to 5.3 parts per million of carbon dioxide, or 0.70 gigatons of carbon dioxide per year. They also found that the areas with the largest plankton blooms, and hence the most effective at carbon dioxide removal, were the Southern Ocean and the equatorial Pacific.

However, the strategy depleted nutrients near the equator. Fertilizing 0.35% of the ocean in the equatorial Pacific leads to at least 10% decline in zooplankton. Meanwhile, fertilizing 0.2% of the Southern Ocean led to a 10% increase in zooplankton.

“The next step would be to explore the fishery impact of OIF, with additional model experiments at more locations in the Southern Ocean to test the benefits and risks,” Yu says.

Source: Jun Yu et al. Climate benefit and ecological cost trade-offs for ocean iron fertilization. Nature, 2026.

Image credit: NASA Earth Observatory

The company plans to double its manufacturing capacity as it continues to see a “strong supply-demand environment” for gas turbines in the U.S., CFO Hiroshi Nishio said.