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Leaders of the Santa Marta coalition – a group of governments, businesses and civil society organisations seeking to transition away from fossil fuels – hope it can withstand the loss of one of its founding members as a far-right, pro-fossil fuel government takes office in Colombia this week.

In April, Colombia hosted 57 governments in the Caribbean city of Santa Marta for the first conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels – a voluntary meeting outside of official UN climate talks. In June, far-right candidate Abelardo de la Espriella won a general election, and is set to take office on Friday.

De la Espriella has pledged to ramp up coal exports and begin fracking for methane gas, reversing a ban on all new hydrocarbon exploration enacted by the current government of Gustavo Petro since 2022. The soon to be environment minister Fabio Arjona said the Santa Marta conference was an “absolute waste of time and money”.

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He will replace Irene Vélez Torres, who co-chairs the Santa Marta coalition. Torres told a press briefing last week that the initiative was created in a way that made sure “it could live without Colombia because we knew [a change in government] was a risk”.

“It’s a coalition of countries but also subnational governments, civil society, scientists… so there is a lot more than just Colombia. It’s a shame that Colombia cannot continue with its international leadership, but it doesn’t mean that what we created as a global legacy will not continue,” she said.

Dutch environment minister Stientje van Veldhoven, also a co-chair in the initiative, told Climate Home News in a statement that “the organization is set-up in a way that progress does not depend on one or two countries”, and highlighted the role of incoming co-chairs Ireland and Tuvalu.

The new co-chairs will officially take the lead after COP31 and are set to host the second Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels in Tuvalu next year. Van Veldhoven said the two countries are already involved in preparing for this transition.

Priorities: roadmaps, debt and trade

After meeting in Santa Marta to kickstart work on phasing out fossil fuels, governments agreed to focus on three priorities: developing national roadmaps to phase out fossil fuels, decoupling trade from coal, oil and gas, and reducing global finance’s dependence on fossil fuels.

At last year’s COP30, a group of around 80 countries led a failed push for the UN to adopt a global roadmap to phase out fossil fuels. To keep talks from collapsing, Brazil proposed to draft a voluntary roadmap instead, which has received suggestions from dozens of countries.

In June, Vélez Torres told journalists that Colombia and the Netherlands would seek for COP31 to reflect the work of the Santa Marta coalition, something the co-presidency of Türkiye and Australia was “open” to consider, she added.

Last week, she stressed that the workstreams are also set up independently from the Dutch and Colombian governments, and that each area of focus will have its own “madrina”, which translates as “godmother”, a contact point that will oversee progress and support countries.

Van Veldhoven noted that, while the coalition is open to new members, the current priority is “setting up the organisation with the current involved countries and stakeholders”. The Dutch government noted that “several countries” have expressed interest, but could not disclosed which ones.

Colombia’s fossil fuel shift

While the coalition is set up to withstand changes in government, Colombia’s shift to a pro-fossil fuel government represents an important blow to global initiatives seeking to phase out fossil fuels, said Andreas Malm, author and professor of human ecology at Lund University.

“The gap that we have after this defeat is charismatic political leadership that makes the necessary links and arguments on the global stage. For the moment, I don’t see who could replace Colombia in that role,” he said. “But who knows… perhaps some miracle will happen somewhere in the world and you will have someone to pick up that mantle that is now on the ground.”

Colombia not only leads the Santa Marta coalition, but is also one of the few fossil fuel producers in the group to actually halt new exploration licenses. Coal and oil derivatives account for about a third of the country’s exports, but both industries have followed a downward trend over the last decade.

De la Espriella’s government will also have to start from scratch, as Petro’s government halted all oil and gas exploration pilots in the key Magdalena and Cesar-Ranchería regions. Both areas are also home to indigenous communities who are likely to challenge any projects in court.

Vélez Torres said that halting all new coal, oil and gas exploration licenses “was not easy” and led to “violent reactions” from national elites, including “violent threats”, but that it came with the deep belief that “it is needed, it is urgent, and it cannot be delayed”.

At an international level, she added that more countries need to show “political bravery” to take similar decisions, and that the global discussion to phase out fossil fuels “cannot be delayed” because the time window for humanity to act is shrinking.

“We decided to go against the current. That has been one of the bravest decisions, and I hope that other governments and particularly civil society can get to lead that conversation forward”, she said.

The post Santa Marta coalition tested as co-chair Colombia turns back to fossil fuels appeared first on Climate Home News.

When heavy storms triggered a fault on a major power line in Indonesia’s Sumatra in late May, blackouts plunged homes and businesses across the island into darkness, leaving millions to cope without power in the humid heat for up to a day.

Failed traffic lights caused chaos on the streets of Medan, one of the country’s biggest cities, and restaurants and shops had to shutter or throw out food after fridges stopped working. Four people were reported to have died from carbon monoxide poisoning from generators.

A power outage caused by damage to cables on a high-voltage transmission line, the first of two to strike Sumatra in a fortnight, highlighted the huge challenge facing Indonesia and much of neighbouring Southeast Asia – the maintenance and upgrading of inadequate grid capacity that industry analysts say is proving an obstacle for billions of dollars in planned clean power investments.

Experts told Climate Home News the Galang–Simangkuk transmission line, which was relatively new and only began operating seven years ago, should have been able to withstand the storms that caused transmission towers to collapse in early June.

“It should not have had these grid failures,” said Wai-Shin Chan, Hong Kong-based head of research at Asia Research & Engagement, a consulting firm, warning that climate change would bring more frequent episodes of extreme weather.

“The grid resilience is really not there,” Chan said.

The Indonesian Air Force helped state-owned utility PT Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN) transport emergency power towers to restore electricity supplies within 24 hours, but the two incidents could cause longer-lasting damage to investor confidence – hurting the delivery of much-needed reliable clean electricity supplies.

PLN did not respond to a request for comment.

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Grid bottlenecks and projects stuck on hold

With electrification high on the agenda of the COP31 climate talks later this year, there is growing global focus on the need to bolster grid infrastructure to cope with increased electricity use and more renewables in the power mix.

In Southeast Asia, energy experts say inadequate grid capacity and maintenance is already proving a major factor in the region’s stuttering rollout of new clean energy projects.

About 50% to 60% of renewable energy projects in Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia were cancelled or stalled between 2021 and 2025, according to a recent report by consultancy Bain & Company and Standard Chartered. In Indonesia, 48% of announced projects were subsequently dropped or delayed during that period. 

Progress in the region is also being hampered by issues ranging from unclear power purchase agreement (PPA) structures, a failure of power policies to keep up with investor needs, permitting and licensing approval delays, grid connection constraints, limits to private sector involvement in electricity markets, and policy and tariff uncertainty, energy experts said.

Some renewable energy projects have also faced opposition due to their environmental impact and issues related to land rights.

But Bain researchers found grid infrastructure was the biggest bottleneck for Southeast Asia’s energy transition, with about $18 billion per year needed in investment for modernisation and upgrades.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has warned that electricity grid and storage investment in the region was higher in 2015 at $15 billion compared with $12 billion in 2025, even as electricity demand and renewable energy growth accelerated.

“It’s a concern for long-term power development in the region,” Chan said. 

“If these risks – grid curtailment, policy uncertainty, permitting and PPA – are not adequately addressed, investors just don’t have the confidence to hit the final investment decision button,” he added. 

A stuttering energy transition

Ramping up progress on solar, wind, hydro and geothermal projects is vital for Southeast Asian nations to hit their targets on cutting planet-heating carbon emissions.

Indonesia has pledged to reduce emissions by 31.9% by 2030 compared with business-as-usual levels, or by 43.2% with international support, on the way to reaching net zero by 2060. 

Renewables accounted for about 18% of Indonesia’s energy mix in April 2026 according to local media reports, falling short of the country’s initial 23% target for 2025, with the majority of its energy needs met by coal, oil and gas. In 2025, a new National Energy Policy postponed achieving the target to 2030. 

“The region carries significant weight in global terms, given its share of world population and energy consumption,” said Joseph Jacobelli, an impact investor and author of Asia’s Energy Revolution and Powering the Unstoppable Green Shift. 

“Every delay in renewable energy deployment extends dependence on fossil fuels and pushes net zero targets further out of reach,” he said. 

A technician walks next to solar panels that partially provide electrical power to the Grand Mosque of Istiqlal, in Jakarta, Indonesia (Photo: REUTERS/Willy Kurniawan)

There are cost benefits of increasing renewables in the overall power mix, too. 

In many parts of the region, new renewable power – especially solar and onshore wind – is cheaper than building new fossil fuel generation. The global energy shock unleashed by the Iran war has highlighted the energy security benefits of renewables, though it also raised concerns about coal backsliding in countries including Indonesia.

Surging oil prices exposed Southeast Asia’s vulnerability to fossil fuel supply disruptions, causing energy prices to soar and widespread fuel shortages that led the World Bank to downgrade the region’s growth projection. 

“This situation pushes us to accelerate [the energy transition], we must move faster,” Indonesian President  Prabowo Subianto said in March, adding that the government was focused on solar projects that would deliver a total installed capacity of up to 100 GW.

At the same time, progress on moving away from coal has been sluggish. Both Indonesia and Vietnam signed up for Just Energy Transition Partnerships (JETPs) – a funding initiative set up by the G7 to help developing nations shift away from coal – though a lack of favourable financing is holding back these plans.

The US withdrew from its JETP deals with the two countries last year, reflecting President Donald Trump’s wider energy policies, and Indonesia abandoned plans to close a major coal power plant.

Lack of finance, or lack of faith?

But a shortage of financing to bring new renewables projects online is not the cause of foot-dragging in Indonesia, where installed solar capacity reached only about 20% to 30% of the government’s 2020-2025 target, Bain researchers said.

Of an estimated $540 billion in green capital expenditure announced across Southeast Asia’s power and electric vehicle value chains between now and 2030, only about $315 billion is on a credible path towards deployment under current conditions, according to the report. 

Between 2022 and early 2026, more than a quarter of the 452 new solar projects announced in Southeast Asian countries were postponed or cancelled, according to Global Energy Monitor‘s Global Solar Power Tracker.

In Indonesia, the Batam Bintan Karimun solar farm was initially expected to come online by 2024 but was cancelled in 2023 for unknown reasons, Kasandra O’Malia, a project manager at Global Energy Monitor, told Climate Home. The project also included plans for Southeast Asia’s largest associated battery storage facility.

Another high-profile Indonesian development that has stalled is a 3,500 MW solar and storage project proposed on Riau Island to export clean electricity to Singapore. While not formally abandoned, there have been few updates to this project since April 2022. 

“This execution gap is not really to do with money – there is available capital – but the finance is not being deployed effectively because the risks have not been adequately redressed,” Chan said.

In a bid to foster investor certainty, Indonesia’s government approved a new 2025-2034 Electricity Supply Business Plan (RUPTL) for PLN in May 2025, replacing years of delays over the country’s power development roadmap.   

As well as aligning government policy, streamlining permitting, simplifying purchase procedures and targeting 70 GW of new generation, with renewables accounting for the vast majority of additions, the plan includes the construction of about 47,800 kilometres of new transmission lines and substations with a total capacity of 108,000 megavolt-ampere, spread across Indonesia.

The Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, several domestic and international renewable energy developers, and the Indonesia Renewable Society, did not respond to requests for comment.

Another way to soothe investors’ nerves would be for governments to use public money to de-risk investments, but there is little appetite for this approach in the region, Chan said.

A more effective tool would be ensuring stable, investment-friendly energy market policies and regulations, said Alnie Demoral, a Manila-based energy analyst at climate think-tank Ember who previously worked with solar developers and investors.

Renewable energy developers, investors and authorities can spend years negotiating the project’s costs, permitting and whether grid connection will be available to bring clean power online, she said. 

Often the longest discussions focus on the power pricing tariffs that governments set for renewable energy producers. Changing policies or disagreement on underlying cost assumptions can stall or delay a project before it reaches financial close, she added. 

“Governments have to do their part by making sure the investment environment is stable,” Demoral said.

“But this is a two-way process. The private sector and developers must also ensure that their assessments of the project are based on robust assumptions.”

AI data centres add to the strain

At the same time, rapid growth in power-hungry AI data centres is putting extra strain on the region’s overstretched grids.

AI data centres, which use much more power than regular data centres, are becoming one of the largest drivers of new power demand in Southeast Asia as governments in the region jostle for more multibillion-dollar investment in the sector.

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• Jun 23, 2026 News UN asks AI companies to reveal full environmental impacts UN chief António Guterres says big AI firms should disclose the emissions, water and energy use of their data centres amid community opposition Read more

The slow pace of renewable energy deployment and grid modernisation, coupled with ongoing reliance on fossil fuels in the electricity mix, will make it difficult for the region to meet a new, fast-growing source of additional demand without increasing emissions. 

Emissions from data centre power use in Indonesia are expected to quadruple between 2024 and 2030, according to Ember.

AI data centres operate around the clock and will often use any power that is available – be it renewables or fossil fuels, said Chan, urging policymakers to first ensure they can meet the power needs before courting data centres.

Many new AI data centres are planned for areas with insufficient high-voltage transmission capacity, according to the Bain report, suggesting that countries should focus on new high-voltage lines, larger substations and stronger interconnections between regions.    

The researchers note that AI data centres also typically take about one to three years to build, while major electricity transmission lines and grid updates can take five years or more, adding that power grid investments must happen before renewable energy or AI projects.  

“Growth in data centres and AI is already adding pressure to constrained grids,” said Christina Ng, the Kuala Lumpur-based co-founder of Energy Shift Institute, an Asia-focused, independent energy finance think-tank.  

“The risk is that new demand is met through high-emitting electricity if clean power and clean grid investment do not keep pace.” 

Main image: A technician walks next to solar panels that partially provide electrical power to the Grand Mosque of Istiqlal in Jakarta, Indonesia (Photo: REUTERS/Willy Kurniawan)

The post Southeast Asia’s fragile grids threaten billions in clean energy investment appeared first on Climate Home News.

Do ‘feel good’ energy drinks deliver on their health claims? Anthony Lacey August 5, 2026

Energy drink brands like Monster and Red Bull have dominated the market for years with gritty marketing. Now, wellness-focused brands like Celsius are promoting energy drinks they claim will boost metabolism and support an active lifestyle – but are they actually healthy?

These newer brands swap the sugar and high calories for wellness-inspired branding; think bright colors and fruit-forward imagery. Alani-Nu, owned by Celsius, says its products break away from “dark cans, extreme sports” energy drinks. Instead, the company says its drinks provide “ingredients you can feel good about” and a “high energy” boost.

But efforts to create a healthier image don’t necessarily lead to a healthier product. Many of these drinks contain high levels of caffeine and ultra-processed ingredients, including artificial chemicals used to enhance flavor, color and shelf stability rather than nutrition.

Get your free guide: EWG's Guide to Food Additives Food chemicals and energy drinks

An increasingly common ingredient in these newer energy drinks is green tea extract. While green tea is often associated with health benefits, the highly concentrated extracts used in some beverages are a different story. 

One of green tea’s primary compounds, epigallocatechin gallate, or EGCG, can be present in concentrated forms at levels far higher than those found in a typical cup of tea, raising safety questions.

The Food and Drug Administration has questioned EGCG’s effects, including its potential association with increased risk of cancer based on studies conducted in cells and on harm to several organs. 

But you may find EGCG in your drink anyway, thanks to a legal loophole that allows food ingredients to be considered “generally recognized as safe” by industry scientists – even without FDA review. The exemption lets manufacturers determine which food chemicals are safe.

Chemical and food companies have exploited this loophole for decades – in fact, that’s how almost all new food chemicals get introduced to the market. 

Artificial sweeteners aren’t a health fix

“Zero sugar” doesn’t mean zero risk. Many of these beverages rely on artificial sweeteners such as acesulfame potassium and sucralose, which is 600 times sweeter than regular table sugar.

Sucralose is included on EWG’s Dirty Dozen Guide to Food Chemicals. The list highlights ingredients to avoid because of links to health and safety risks.

Don’t overlook the high caffeine content, either. These “healthy” alternatives often pack as much as 200 milligrams of caffeine per can – nearly double that of traditional options like Red Bull and Monster. That’s about half of the FDA’s recommended maximum daily limit, potentially triggering spiked heart rates, anxiety and insomnia.

EWG helps you choose healthier options

The bottom line? Don't let these drinks’ clean packaging designs fool you – they don’t make the beverage it contains any better for you. Reading ingredient lists and nutrition labels are the best way to find out what’s in the food and drinks you consume.  

That’s where EWG’s Food Scores database comes in. 

Food Scores rates more than 150,000 products based on nutrition, ingredient concerns and the degree of processing, making it easy to compare products side by side and make more informed choices at the grocery store. Food Scores also flags unhealthy ultra-processed food and drinks and can help you identify alternatives.

Areas of Focus Food & Water Food Ultra-Processed Foods Family Health Women's Health Food Chemicals Guest Authors Luz Fontana-Mansilla (EWG communications intern) August 5, 2026

When wildfire smoke blanketed northern Michigan skies last month, Kasey Wierzba thought the vineyard at Shady Lane Cellars in Suttons Bay looked like a different planet.

“That kind of pinky, peachy haze really was filtering through the whole vineyard. The visibility was really minimal,” said Wierzba, the general manager and executive winemaker at Shady Lane Cellars, a winery and vineyard that sits on the “little finger” of the state on Leelanau Peninsula, a region famous for its winemaking.

Wierzba also thought about how the pungent smoke might impact the grapes, something that the larger wine industry is becoming more familiar with as global warming increases the frequency and intensity of wildfires. Though she and other local grape growers were spared — the worst of the wildfires were burning far away in Canada and Minnesota, the smoke didn’t linger long, and it’s still early in the growing season — climate change could bring the threat closer to home in the future. 

At stake is the state’s nearly $9 billion wine industry, which may have to adapt to the smoke’s effects on grapes, a challenge those in wine regions like the West Coast and Australia are already confronting.

When grapes are exposed to smoke for an extended amount of time, finished wines can develop what’s known as “smoke taint” — unwanted flavors that have been described as everything from barbecued food to burnt bacon.

Because it’s early in the growing season, Wierzba said she’s confident there won’t be any impact on finished wines. The grapes are shaped like small pellets at this point of the year, known as the “buckshot berry stage” because they resemble the size of bullets used for hunting deer.

Andy Fles, vineyard manager for Shady Lane Cellars in Suttons Bay, Michigan, shows off young muscat grapes in the “buckshot berry stage” of fruit development.
Vivian La / IPR News

Still, if and when smoke hits again, Wierzba said she’ll consider sending grape samples to labs that could detect the compounds associated with wildfire smoke. “I think having the smoke incident at this time in the grape growing, when they wouldn’t be affected, spurred me to think, ‘Wow, I need to be prepared,’” Wierzba said.

Tests can help, but it’s generally difficult to measure damage from smoke before wine is produced, said Paolo Sabbatini, a viticulture professor at Michigan State University. Smoke compounds bind with the grape skin and tissues, and the flavors associated with smoke taint only come through during the fermentation process.

“You need to wait for the finished wine. So during the season, unless your vineyard catches on fire and you see damage on the berries after a smoke event, you can’t even measure anything,” he said.

Sabbatini received 10 calls from grape growers and winemakers around Michigan with questions about smoke impacts. But he said he’s “pretty confident” that there wasn’t enough smoke exposure over a long enough period of time for grapes to be impacted by the fires, which are still burning in Ontario and Minnesota and have so far destroyed more than 64,000 acres, according to the U.S. Forest Service.

Local growers said it was fortunate that smoke didn’t hit the region during the key time that grapes change color in the fall — the period when they are typically most sensitive to smoke.

“We are sitting with our fruit still at a very immature stage, when we’re still going through cell division. So all of the cells, and the cluster, and the berries aren’t formed yet,” said Brian Hosmer, winemaker at Chateau Chantal, a winery and inn on Old Mission Peninsula, another northern Michigan winemaking hotspot.

Smoke taint is a rising concern elsewhere around the world, where hotter, larger wildfires have crept ever closer to vineyards. Ongoing fires in southwestern France have already scorched more than 160 square miles of forest near Bordeaux, pushing up against the country’s world-famous wine region.

“We’re talking about places where the fire is literally up to the edge of the vineyards, or even a couple miles away, where they’re getting ash falling directly on the fruit,” Hosmer said.

As climate change fuels the hotter, drier summers that increase the likelihood of wildfire events and widespread smoke, the number of places exposed to smoke taint is also increasing, said Ben Montpetit, chair of the department of viticulture and enology at the University of California, Davis. The program is one of the country’s leaders in the area of smoke taint research.

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There aren’t simple solutions to smoke taint, Montpetit said. Treatments to remove some of the unwanted flavors could impact wine quality or introduce other tastes. While growing awareness of the issue has led to increased state and federal support for studies — the latest draft of the U.S. farm bill includes a directive for more research and development into wine grapes and wildfire smoke exposure — Montpetit said smoke taint will remain a problem. 

“As much as we can prepare, there are going to be fires in the future, and unfortunately, they will impact wine regions,” Montpetit said.

Grape growers said they’re learning to adapt to multiple changes in the environment, from drifting wildfire smoke to increasingly variable weather conditions. Studies looking at climate change impacts on Michigan’s wine region cite early spring frosts that can damage vines and hotter temperatures during the growing season.

Those in the industry said adaptation is part of the job. After all, winemakers first flocked to the region centuries ago to take advantage of the extended growing season that Lake Michigan provides.

“It’s always challenging. It’s farming. It’s legalized gambling,” Hosmer with Chateau Chantal said. He’s not concerned about impacts from this recent smoke, he said, but a trend of warmer summers “definitely makes us think about what’s going on in the woods around our vineyards” in terms of local fire danger.

Vineyard manager Andy Fles, left, and Kasey Wierzba, general manager and executive winemaker, examine the grapevines at Shady Lane Cellars.
Vivian La / IPR News

Andy Fles, vineyard manager for Shady Lane Cellars, said it’s already been a tough growing season in northern Michigan this year, between extreme precipitation and fluctuating temperatures.

“Global warming doesn’t mean everywhere is going to be warmer every single year,” he said. “I think what it means for us is that it’s climate chaos, and it’s very hard to predict what is going to happen.” 

And that includes wildfire smoke.

“It’s something that you can’t necessarily control, which is frustrating at times,” Fles said. “So this is just a new hurdle, and we’ll find ways to deal with it when we have to.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Michigan winemakers have a new climate worry: More wildfire smoke on Aug 5, 2026.

Betsy Robertson was standing in the center of the Spokane Convention Center on Monday afternoon, but she wasn’t there for a gala or a conference. Instead, the event space in the middle of Washington state’s second-largest city had been transformed into a Red Cross emergency shelter as a trio of wildfires, just a few miles away, burned down entire neighborhoods.

Nurses and volunteers were moving between the rows of cots around Robertson, making sure that the hundreds of evacuees – from the mothers with their babies to the elderly with their caretakers – had blankets and enough to eat. Just outside, the air was noxious with smoke “thick enough to burn your eyes,” she said.

Robertson, a communications director for the Red Cross, is from Washington, and has been with the organization for 10 years. She has seen communities devastated by wildfires before. But never like this.

“The scale of homes destroyed and lives changed forever – this is a new level,” she said. “We are bracing ourselves for seasons like this getting worse and worse, and starting earlier and going later.”

A historically dry winter, extreme drought and heat waves set the stage for the hundreds of wildfires that have burned across the Pacific Northwest this summer. Dozens of large ones have broken out in the last week alone. Though it’s still early in the fire season, Oregon recently broke its annual record for acreage burned with nearly 2 million acres scorched. 

Washington is also in the middle of its most destructive season on record, with more than half a million acres burned and at least 65,000 residents ordered to evacuate across the state. The three large fires that started on Saturday around Spokane had destroyed more than 700 hundred buildings by Monday afternoon. 

“I’ve been trying to wrap my mind around how we’re going to house all these folks,” said Kitty Klitzke, a member of the Spokane City Council representing a hard-hit area where two fires were burning on Tuesday morning. Many of the people displaced by the fires in Spokane are senior citizens and their caretakers. “It’s a miracle that, so far, we know of no fatalities and no reported missing people,” Klitzke said.

A woman and her daughter wait for news on the status of their home at a Red Cross evacuation center in Spokane, Washington, on August 4, 2026. Josh Edelson / AFP via Getty Images

As the planet heats up, the conditions that fuel extreme wildfires are becoming more common. A warmer atmosphere can hold about 7 percent more water vapor for every 1 degree Celsius of warming, drawing more moisture from soils and vegetation and leaving forests and grasslands primed to burn. That dynamic also causes rain to fall more intensely but less frequently, leading to long periods of drought.

“This fire, and what we’re expecting to come, makes no sense unless you connect the dots through a changing climate,” said Bob Freitag, who recently served as director of the Institute of Hazards Mitigation Research and Planning at the University of Washington. “The science is known, and this is not something that is a one-off.”

According to Paul Pastelok, a senior meteorologist at AccuWeather, a lack of snowfall across the region helped set the stage for these fires. Normally, snowpack builds up during the winter and melts gradually through the rest of the year, providing a steady source of moisture. This year, the already-small snowpack was hit with hot spring temperatures, causing this reserve to melt early and leaving the landscape parched. Spokane had half of the typical snowfall this year, Pastelok said. Other parts of the state had even less, with many areas reaching historic lows.

In the last few days, powerful winds carried hot embers from the Little Giant fire, a 70,000 acre blaze in central Washington, for more than 3 miles, sending the flames clear over the waters of Lake Chelan and into the forests on the other side. Ryan Rodruck, a communications manager at the Washington Department of Natural Resources, called the overall situation “extremely tragic” and said that it had been an exceptionally challenging season for the thousands of wildland firefighters deployed across the state.

Residents of Spokane, Washington look through the remains of their burned home on August 3, 2026. AP Photo / Lindsey Wasson

In Spokane, more high winds forecast for this weekend could further worsen conditions, said Benjamin Cossel, a wildfire public information officer from California working with fire-fighting crews in the city.

The situation is comparable to the Los Angeles fires in 2025, Cossel said. Both outbreaks began in wild areas before moving into partially forested suburban neighborhoods. The urban setting also makes the smoke especially toxic, he said. A recently released study found that the Los Angeles fires, which sent more than 200,000 residents fleeing, had exposed an estimated 3.3 million people to high concentrations of a cancer-causing toxin. 

Klitzke, the city council member, said the affected neighborhoods in Spokane were known to be vulnerable to fires. Steep terrain and abundant plant life helped the fires spread quickly over the weekend, while the winding cul-de-sac layouts of the neighborhoods slowed evacuations and made it difficult for emergency responders to reach the fires.

“These are neighborhoods with thousands of people and only two ways in or out,” Klitzke said, adding that many evacuees were stuck waiting in traffic for hours, watching the houses around them burn down. 

Areas where homes mingle with natural areas are known as the wildland-urban interface. This kind of suburban housing is the fastest growing type of land development in the United States, and research shows that the homes built in these areas are more likely to burn down when wildfires spread.

“We already knew that this was a dangerous situation,” she said. “We need to get really serious about addressing climate change.”

Increasingly, fire-prone states like California are requiring homeowners to clear the trees and shrubs in a radius surrounding their home. This buffer zone, known as a defensible space, can dramatically reduce the risk that a wildfire will ignite a building. 

People chose to live in these neighborhoods precisely because they love the vegetation, Cossel said. “I understand why people don’t want to remove them,” he said. “But we can’t live in that world anymore because of these fires.”

This story has been updated to clarify where the fires started around Spokane.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Wildfire season is changing. Spokane is showing how. on Aug 5, 2026.

In a win for opponents of Enbridge Energy’s Line 5 pipeline, the Michigan Supreme Court vacated a key permit last week for a proposed project that would replace a segment of the pipeline running underneath an environmentally-sensitive area of the Great Lakes, finding that a state commission did not examine the full scope of possible harm to the environment.

Following the 6-1 decision, the justices remanded the permit back to the Michigan Public Service Commission for a more thorough review, which likely extends the timeline for a decision on a project that’s already been mired in legal and procedural hurdles for years. 

Enbridge Energy received the permit in 2023 for its proposal to replace a segment of the oil and natural gas liquids pipeline — which connects lakes Michigan and Huron via the Straits of Mackinac — with a new one encased in a tunnel buried in the lakebed. Environmental groups and tribal nations appealed the decision, landing the case before the state’s highest court this year.

Writing for a nearly unanimous court in a 58-page opinion, Justice Elizabeth Welch said that the commission didn’t consider the full range of potential environmental harms, nor did it look at how the project would impact the public’s right to use the state’s natural resources, which includes the Great Lakes — protections granted under the state’s public trust doctrine.

“We cannot fault (the commission) for this failure, because there was little authority on this issue prior to our decision today. Even so, it was error,” the opinion stated.

Justices found that the commission incorrectly limited its scope of review under the Michigan Environmental Protection Act to just the tunnel, when it should have examined how the project would impact the broader pipeline. Line 5 transports crude oil and natural gas liquids 645 miles from Superior, Wisconsin, through Michigan to Sarnia, Ontario, with 4.5 miles of the pipeline crossing the straits. 

In its new review, the justices said that the public service commission must answer whether the tunnel project will extend the lifespan of the 73-year-old pipeline, and if it does, determine what impacts there are to the environment and to the public trust.

“It is impossible to prevent or mitigate an environmental risk without understanding the nature of that risk,” the justices wrote.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs — four tribal nations across Michigan and three environmental groups — argued that because the tunnel project would extend the pipeline’s lifespan, it causes harm by increasing the risk of oil spills along Line 5’s entirety and increased greenhouse gas emissions from the fossil fuels it transports.

“The court has made clear that our understanding of environmental harm, it’s a practical understanding, but it’s also a broad one,” said Chad Hughes, senior attorney for the Environmental Law & Policy Center, which argued with the plaintiffs. “There’s no requirement to narrowly focus on the physical location of the project. You look at the environmental harms where they happen.”

By broadening the scope of reviews under the Michigan Environmental Protection Act, opponents said conversations about shutting down the entire pipeline are finally a possibility. The justices wrote that “a meaningful examination” of alternatives can’t happen until the commission determines the full impacts of the project.

“The door has been kicked open to an imaginable future where we can talk about alternatives other than Line 5,” said President Whitney Gravelle of the Bay Mills Indian Community, one of the plaintiffs in the case.

In a statement, Enbridge spokesperson Ryan Duffy wrote that the company disagrees and is disappointed by the ruling, calling it an additional delay to a project that has already been under review for nearly a decade. Enbridge is reviewing the opinion and assessing legal options, he said.

“What remains unchanged is our commitment to operating Line 5 safely and responsibly, incorporating enhanced safety measures in the Straits, and protecting Michigan’s natural resources for generations to come,” the statement said.

The lone dissenting opinion from Justice Brian Zahra said that the court’s directive to consider the full scope of potential harms was “a moral hazard,” because state regulators already decided Line 5 was in the public interest when it approved construction more than 70 years ago. 

But Zahra agreed with the majority on the requirement to consider the public trust doctrine, and recommended that the commission use last month’s permit issuance from a separate state agency as a guide. The Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy said the necessity of the tunnel in preventing an oil spill in the Great Lakes outweighed other public interests.

Separate from the tunnel project, Line 5 faces legal challenges from groups that have fought to shut down the pipeline for years, including Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s administration. This spring, a unanimous ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court paved the way for state court proceedings on whether the aging pipeline can continue operating in the straits.

Line 5 protesters in Detroit in 2021. Jim West / UCG / Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Last week’s ruling was also a significant win for public trust considerations, according to environmental lawyers. The public service commission declined to consider the public trust doctrine in its analysis prior to issuing its permit in 2023, a decision upheld by the Michigan Court of Appeals because it argued the commission “possesses only that authority bestowed upon it by statute.”

The justices reversed this ruling, agreeing in a concurrent case with plaintiff Flow Water Advocates that the state legislature grants the public service commission “the authority — and indeed, the responsibility — to consider the public trust doctrine.”

“It is elevating the rights of the public. It’s saying that the intergenerational equity that we promise our children will be there,” said Liz Kirkwood, executive director of Flow.

Gravelle with the Bay Mills Indian Community said this new consideration of the doctrine is a win for tribal treaty rights. Tribes in Michigan have long asserted that Line 5’s operation interferes with their rights to fight, hunt, and gather on treaty-ceded lands, which include the Straits of Mackinac.

“You can’t have a treaty right to fish if you don’t have healthy waterways for fish to spawn. You can’t have a treaty right to hunt if you’re cutting down forests and filling wetlands, you can’t have a treaty right to gather if you’re polluting waterways and watersheds that are impacting plant species that you rely on for ceremonial or medicinal purposes,” she said.

The court’s ruling reflects an Indigenous way of thinking that could shape future environmental reviews, Gravelle said.

“We have teachings in our culture that require us to think generations ahead: Is the decision I made today going to benefit seven generations from now?” she said. “We need more holistic, proactive decision-making from our state agencies moving forward. And so, I hope that’s the pathway carved.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline A controversial plan to update Line 5 just suffered a major loss at the Michigan Supreme Court on Aug 5, 2026.

Richard’s writing never minimized the severity of the challenges before us, but neither did it surrender to hopelessness. Again and again, he insisted that another path could be imagined and designed—one based on ecological understanding, community-based economics, and a renewed culture of commoning.

Give peace a chance Channel Comment brendan 5th August 2026 Teaser Media

permainan yang belakangan banyak diperbincangkan adalah Slot Terbaru Mafia Ways. Permainan ini hadir dengan konsep yang mengangkat nuansa dunia mafia klasik yang dipadukan dengan desain visual modern, sehingga mampu menciptakan pengalaman bermain yang terasa berbeda dibandingkan tema slot lainnya.

Dari sudut pandang edukatif, kemunculan Mafia Ways menunjukkan bagaimana pengembang permainan digital terus berusaha menghadirkan variasi yang mampu memenuhi selera berbagai kalangan. Bukan hanya mengandalkan tampilan grafis, permainan seperti ini juga memperhatikan aspek cerita, efek suara, hingga animasi yang membuat pemain merasa lebih terlibat selama bermain.

Tema mafia sendiri bukanlah hal baru dalam industri hiburan. Film, serial televisi, hingga video game telah lama menggunakan konsep tersebut sebagai daya tarik. Pada Slot Terbaru Mafia Ways, nuansa tersebut dikemas dengan pendekatan yang lebih ringan dan menghibur. Karakter berpakaian khas era gangster, latar kota bergaya klasik, serta simbol-simbol seperti koper uang, topi fedora, dan mobil antik menjadi elemen visual yang memperkuat identitas permainan.

Salah satu alasan mengapa permainan bertema seperti ini mudah menarik perhatian adalah karena manusia pada dasarnya menyukai cerita. Ketika sebuah permainan memiliki alur atau suasana yang jelas, pemain akan lebih mudah memahami identitas permainan tersebut. Sebagai contoh, seseorang yang menyukai film bertema kriminal klasik kemungkinan akan merasa lebih tertarik mencoba permainan dengan nuansa serupa dibandingkan permainan yang menggunakan tema fantasi.

Selain desain visual, kemudahan memahami aturan juga menjadi faktor penting. Sebagian besar slot modern, termasuk Mafia Ways, dirancang agar dapat dimainkan tanpa harus mempelajari mekanisme yang rumit. Pemain cukup mengenali simbol-simbol yang muncul di layar, memahami fungsi fitur bonus yang tersedia, lalu mengikuti petunjuk yang telah disediakan dalam permainan. Pendekatan ini membuat permainan lebih ramah bagi pengguna baru yang belum memiliki banyak pengalaman.

Contoh sederhana dapat dilihat ketika seseorang pertama kali mencoba permainan digital. Jika menu terlihat jelas, tombol mudah dikenali, dan informasi tersedia dalam bahasa yang sederhana, proses belajar akan berlangsung lebih cepat. Prinsip inilah yang banyak diterapkan pada permainan slot generasi terbaru agar pengalaman pengguna menjadi lebih nyaman.

Di sisi lain, perkembangan teknologi juga memberikan pengaruh besar terhadap kualitas permainan. Animasi kini tampil lebih halus, efek suara semakin realistis, dan perpindahan antarfitur berlangsung lebih cepat. Semua itu membuat pengalaman bermain terasa lebih hidup tanpa harus menggunakan perangkat dengan spesifikasi yang terlalu tinggi. Bahkan banyak permainan terbaru telah dioptimalkan agar berjalan lancar pada smartphone maupun komputer.

Bermain Slot Terbaru Mafia Ways juga dapat menjadi contoh bagaimana industri kreatif menggabungkan unsur seni, teknologi, dan hiburan dalam satu produk digital. Desainer grafis bertanggung jawab menciptakan karakter dan lingkungan permainan yang menarik, sementara pengembang perangkat lunak memastikan seluruh sistem berjalan stabil. Di balik sebuah permainan sederhana, terdapat kolaborasi dari berbagai bidang keahlian yang bekerja bersama menghasilkan pengalaman yang berkualitas.

Namun demikian, penting bagi setiap pemain untuk memahami bahwa permainan digital sebaiknya dinikmati sebagai bentuk hiburan. Menentukan batas waktu bermain merupakan langkah sederhana yang dapat membantu menjaga keseimbangan aktivitas sehari-hari. Misalnya, seseorang dapat menetapkan waktu khusus untuk menikmati permainan setelah menyelesaikan pekerjaan atau kegiatan belajar, sehingga hiburan tidak mengganggu tanggung jawab utama.

Pemahaman terhadap informasi yang tersedia di dalam permainan juga menjadi bagian penting dari pengalaman bermain. Banyak pemain terburu-buru memulai permainan tanpa membaca panduan yang telah disediakan. Padahal, melalui menu informasi tersebut, pemain dapat mengetahui fungsi simbol, cara kerja fitur tertentu, hingga berbagai penjelasan lain yang membantu mereka memahami permainan dengan lebih baik.

Fenomena populernya Mafia Ways juga memperlihatkan bagaimana komunitas digital berkembang. Banyak pengguna berbagi pengalaman, ulasan, maupun tips memahami fitur permainan melalui forum dan media sosial. Aktivitas tersebut menciptakan ruang diskusi yang memungkinkan pemain saling bertukar informasi tanpa harus bergantung pada satu sumber saja. Bagi pembaca yang ingin mengenal permainan lebih jauh, membaca berbagai ulasan dapat menjadi langkah awal yang bermanfaat untuk memperoleh gambaran secara lebih objektif.

Selain itu, perkembangan permainan digital menunjukkan pentingnya inovasi yang berkelanjutan. Pengembang terus memperbarui tampilan, meningkatkan kualitas grafis, memperbaiki performa, dan menghadirkan tema-tema baru agar pemain tetap memperoleh pengalaman yang segar. Mafia Ways menjadi salah satu contoh bagaimana kreativitas dalam menggabungkan cerita klasik dengan teknologi modern mampu menghasilkan permainan yang menarik perhatian banyak pengguna.

Pada akhirnya, Bermain Dengan Slot Terbaru Mafia Ways dapat dipahami sebagai bagian dari perkembangan hiburan digital yang semakin kreatif dan mudah diakses. Permainan ini menawarkan kombinasi tema yang unik, tampilan visual yang menarik, serta mekanisme yang relatif mudah dipahami oleh pemain baru maupun yang sudah berpengalaman. Dengan memahami cara kerja permainan, membaca informasi yang tersedia, serta menggunakannya sebagai sarana hiburan secara bijak, pemain dapat menikmati pengalaman yang lebih menyenangkan sekaligus memperoleh wawasan mengenai perkembangan dunia permainan digital yang terus berkembang dari waktu ke waktu.

Cuba's various public policies formally recognize peasants as a distinct social group, thereby preserving their social identity in all spheres of life.

The post This is how Cuba is turning UNDROP into concrete public policies appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

Unregistered high-speed motorcycles are illegal, but a deceptive and widespread marketing tactic has tricked families into purchasing the dangerous vehicles, with deadly results, and fooled lawmakers into pushing laws that would make streets even less safe.

Gabriel Nacato, 17, died last week in New York City after a crash with an SUV while riding his Deepower e-moto. The vehicle’s top speed of 30 miles per hour is illegal in New York, but the uncle who purchased the wheels for Nacato told the media he had no idea. It’s hard to blame him: Deepower’s website advertises the e-moto as an e-bike — a common practice for misleading and endangering consumers.

An illegal e-moto by Tuttio advertised as an “Electric Bike” with a top speed of 46+ mph. Click to expand.

Deepower’s deception is not anomalous. Days before Nacato’s death, a 14-year-old died in Seattle after his e-moto plummeted down a set of stairs. Another 14-year-old outside of Chicago met the same fate.

The deaths come as manufacturers continue to dodge basic safety requirements. Several popular brands design their bikes with a speed cap override, or operate above legal limits by default. Many of these companies target their advertising towards children and teenagers, even though their products can reach speeds up to 50 mph. They list the vehicles as e-bikes, misleading consumers on the risks and legality of their products.

E-moto manufacturer Tuttio Sport markets its illegal, 50 mph-capped bikes to children.

Thrill-seeking youth and well-meaning family members aren’t the only targets of the e-moto scam. Lawmakers are getting duped, too.

In January, New Jersey’s then-Gov. Phil Murphy signed a bill requiring e-bike riders to possess a drivers’ license, registration and, in some cases, insurance. The bill went after legal e-bike users — not the illegal e-moto market.

“The final bill places unnecessary and burdensome restrictions on low-speed e-bikes while leaving higher-risk vehicles like electric mopeds and motorcycles without additional regulations,” PeopleForBikes said in a statement.

New Jersey’s convoluted series of requirements that restrict and deter e-biking. Click for full-size version. Photo: New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission

California legislators introduced a similar bill one month later. Their proposed statute, which would have required riders of most e-bikes to register their bike and attach a license plate, has stalled in committee. Separately, the state’s attorney general advised consumers to be wary of falsely advertised e-motos, and emphasized the danger to children in particular.

“California should focus on regulating, educating, and enforcing laws against deceptive advertising and illegal use of e-motos, rather than creating new barriers for people riding legal e-bikes,” statewide bike advocacy organization CalBike said in a statement.

States vary in how they define e-bikes, compounding consumer uncertainty over what is and is not legal. Some states classify e-bikes as bicycles. Others define them as car-like vehicles. All but eight states and Washington, D.C. follow a three-class system based on speed and wattage. Most states cap unlicensed e-bikes at 28 mph, designating anything faster an e-moto. And without meeting stricter safety rules such as registration, a license, and a helmet, those e-motos are illegal.

Federal officials are beginning to take note of the good, the bad and the outright scapegoating. In March, a bipartisan group of House representatives introduced the Safe SPEEDS Act, which would codify a federal e-bike class system and prohibit merchants from marketing e-motos as e-bikes.

If passed, the bill would empower regulators to curb the illegal e-moto market and keep consumers safe — without punishing law-abiding e-bike riders.

Recommended New Calif. Legislation, Backed by Bike Safety Groups, Proposed to Regulate E-Motos/E-Bikes Damien Newton February 23, 2026

Its sponsors urged regulatory action in a letter sent to the US Consumer Product Safety Commission last month.

“While e-bikes remain an affordable and essential mode of transportation for millions of Americans, federal safety rules have struggled to keep pace with a rapidly evolving marketplace,” the letter said. “Bad actors abuse regulatory loopholes to sell electronic motorcycle-like vehicles to consumers as if they were ordinary e-bikes.”

Amidst Republican-led attacks on bike and pedestrian safety, other members of Congress may be less eager to shield safe alternatives to cars and follow the New Jersey route.

Scapegoating, however, is not an effective legislative strategy. Restricting low-speed, legal e-bikes will not stop e-moto riders from dying in the street. Addressing the illegal, deceptive, and dangerous e-moto market will.

• Flock license plate readers are useful in enforcing traffic laws, but they can also be traffic safety hazards. Some cameras are just a couple of feet from the road, perched atop black metal poles that are hard to see and a lack a breakaway plate allowing them to easily snap when hit by a car. And they’re rarely inspected by city or state transportation officials. (The Guardian)
• Transit agencies are boosting their own ridership by developing land around stations, which has the added benefit of creating more housing where residents don’t need expensive cars. (Metro Magazine)
• The Trump administration’s isolationism is leaving the U.S. behind other countries that are rapidly adopting electric vehicles, according to climate activist Bill McKibben. (New Yorker)
• An Amtrak restructuring could create conflicts within the agency and does not address its biggest problem, funding. (Trains)
• Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey and Rep. Ayanna Presley introduced a bill allocating $25 billion to help transit agencies go fare-free, but some would prefer to spend that money on improving service. (Boston Globe; paywall)
• Not even Dulles officials think the Washington, D.C. airport needs the 32,000-space parking garage President Trump is proposing, especially since it’s now on a D.C. Metro line. (NOTUS)
• Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson is pitching a proposed small tax hike to fund transit as an affordability measure, pointing to the high cost of owning a car.
• Nashville is rolling out more raised crosswalks and concrete dividers protecting bike and scooter lanes as part of its Choose How You Move initiative. (Axios)
• Oklahoma City is an example of a booming city that’s trying to deal with growth by expanding transit rather than highways. (Streetsblog USA)
• A Wayne County, Michigan transit tax referendum looked like it would pass easily Tuesday night. (Detroit Free Press)
• Honolulu Civil Beat reported on a dangerous crosswalk, and lo and behold, the Hawaii DOT actually fixed it!
• To accommodate increased ridership after going fare-free, Iowa City is building a new $20 million transit center. (Press-Citizen)
• Some rural counties in Alabama still have more dirt roads than paved ones, but the state ignores them because not many people live there. (Alabama Political Reporter)
• Business Insider has some tips for traveling overnight on Amtrak.

Nurses at Maine Medical Center in Portland, Maine are staging an emergency protest Wednesday, Aug. 5 to demand the immediate release of an RN colleague who is being detained by ICE despite the fact that she is legally authorized to live and work in the country while she waits for her asylum case from Zambia to be processed.

The assessment of the climate impact of expansion at the Horse Hill oil site in Surrey contains “multiple errors and misleading and irrelevant information”, campaigners said today.

The Weald Action Group, which won a landmark Supreme Court ruling on greenhouse gas emissions, said the assessment, submitted by the developer, made “spurious claims” and failed to comply with the latest guidance.

The flaws led to the “false conclusion” that the climate impact was “not significant”, the group said. It added:

“This is incorrect and must be disregarded”.

Horse Hill oil site near Redhill, Surrey. Photo: Weald Action Group

Weald Action Group (WAG) has called for evidence that the assessment was written by an appropriately qualified practitioner”.

The assessment estimated that four new production wells and extraction of more than 600,000 tonnes of oil over 20 years, would result in more than two million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions. But it stated that the emissions would not be “significant for the climate”.

Kirsty Clough, of WAG, said:

“The oil company’s assessment of greenhouse gas emissions and climate impacts is fundamentally flawed. Had they done the job properly, they could not have avoided concluding that the effects on the climate would be highly significant. The Council cannot grant permission on the basis of such a deficient assessment.”

In its response to Surrey County Council, submitted today, WAG said:

“The technical competency of the consultant who prepared the assessment of climate significance is in question.”

The document was apparently prepared by an air quality consultant.

WAG said the job requires “a broad knowledge of UK climate mitigation policy, in the context of international obligations, to be able form a judgement of significance”.

It said:

“We question whether an air quality consultant would have the relevant technical skills and expertise … to undertake a robust GHG [greenhouse gas] and climate impact assessment.”

It added:

“A lack of competency is observative in the numerous shortcomings and inaccuracies.

“In particular, the author has failed to draw on relevant available guidance, policy and scientific evidence”.

WAG said:

“We urge Surrey County Council to raise the issue of technical competency with the applicant. Specifically they should be required to provide evidence that the assessment was written by an ‘appropriately qualified practitioner’.

“Multiple flaws”

The climate assessment focussed on the emissions resulting from burning Horse Hill oil, known as downstream or scope 3 emissions. The Supreme Court ruling now requires these emissions to be taken into account when deciding fossil fuel proposals.

WAG said its analysis found the Horse Hill assessment was “flawed in multiple ways”.

The group said the assessment failed to comply with:

• new government guidance on assessing the effects of downstream scope 3 emissions
• Town and Country Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) Regulations 2017
• Institute of Sustainability & Environmental Professionals’ Guide to assessing greenhouse gas emissions

WAG said the assessment failed to regard the government guidance as a material planning consideration, even though a developer and climate expert agreed in a separate project that it should be.

The Horse Hill assessment also failed to describe the state of the climate, WAG said.

Scientists have forecast that the maximum amount of carbon we can emit and stay within the legal limit of 1.5C temperature rise is 130-170 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2). This volume of CO2 will be breached in a few years, the group said.

It added:

[This] “conceals the true state of the climate and how little time, if any, we have left to prevent global average temperature rise exceeding the 1.5C limit.”

WAG said the assessment further failed to assess the actual impact of 2 million tonnes of greenhouse gases on, for example, human health, biodiversity, land, soil water, air and climate. This is required by the Environmental Impact Assessment Regulations, it said.

There were also “multiple errors and misleading and irrelevant information” about projected UK oil production and demand and global energy and climate scenarios, WAG said.

It said the assessment implied that new domestic oil production was needed to meet a shortfall in demand up to 2050 and to bolster energy security.

WAG said this “presents a false picture of future oil demand and its relationship to domestic production and shows a lack of understanding of energy markets”.

There was also a “spurious” claim, WAG said, that oil from Horse Hill would substitute for imported oil, which may have a higher carbon intensity.

WAG said no evidence had been provided and the claim should be disregarded:

It said the assessment made unfounded claims that oil from Horse Hill would remain in the UK, even though more than 80% of domestically produced oil and gas is exported. The group said:

“There is no guarantee that oil from Horse Hill will remain and be used within the UK.”

The assessment failed to place Horse Hill greenhouse gas emissions in a global cumulative context of all current and approved fossil fuel projects, WAG said. An estimate in 2022 forecast the emissions from these projects amounted to 936 gigatonnes of CO2.

The group said:

“The significance of the scope 3 emissions arising from the Horse Hill development should … have been assessed relative to the available space in the remaining 1.5C aligned global carbon budget, once the emissions from existing and committed fossil fuel projects (the cumulative effect) have been accounted for. The developer has failed to do this.”

WAG added:

“There is no space in the rapidly dwindling 1.5C global carbon budget for any new fossil fuel developments, and a massive excess of emissions from existing oil, gas and coal infrastructure which will now need to close before the end of its economic life.

“Any emissions from the Horse Hill oilfield development will be additional, cumulative and hence contribute to the further exceedance of the 1.5C global carbon budget.

“On this basis, the scope 3 emissions arising from the Horse Hill development must be deemed significant in terms of their climate impact.”

• Weald Action Group said it would be submitting further objections, including on seismicity and earthquake risk.

By Macy Brigham-Hill, DC Campaign Intern, Chesapeake Climate Action Network

Growing up in the Nation’s Capitol, I spent my summers climbing trees, exploring Rock Creek Park, playing sports, going to the Zoo, camps and playgrounds, and spending almost all of my time outside. Today, those summers are being reshaped by extreme heat. Heat advisories, cancellations, and warnings to stay indoors are frequent experiences for children and families in D.C. Now, as a rising college senior, I feel frustration for kids like my younger sister, whose summers are being threatened and changed by climate change. As extreme heat worsens, we will continue to witness its negative impacts on people’s physical and mental health and overall well-being.

This Fourth of July marked the hottest in D.C. history, surpassing the record in 1919, with temperatures over 100°F. The city issued an extreme heat warning as the heat index was expected to reach 105-115°F in many areas. While high humidity increases the risk of heat-related illness, consistently high temperatures throughout the day produced life-threatening conditions for residents partaking in outdoor plans and events.

On the National Mall, celebrations were cut short due to the dangerous temperatures. D.C. Fire and EMS reported 96 patient contacts and 40 patient transports. People were seen lying on the ground and on stretchers with ice, as they were loaded into ambulances. A total of 603 people received first aid in one day.

High temperatures and humidity are the deadliest extreme weather events worldwide, with thousands of people dying from heat each year in the U.S. alone. A Virginia study on extreme heat, when projected nationally, estimates that heat-related hospital visits and illness cost approximately $1 billion in health care costs each summer. Extreme heat is also particularly dangerous in cities like D.C., due to the urban heat-island effect, which happens when pavement, buildings, and other hard surfaces absorb and trap heat instead of cooling down. This means majority Black and Brown communities, which often have less tree cover, more asphalt, fewer parks, and more development shaped by decades of unequal urban planning, can be about 17 degrees hotter than others on the same day. Neighborhoods such as Ivy City, Trinidad, and the Navy Yard have faced some of the city’s highest heat risks, making extreme heat a public health emergency and an issue of environmental justice.

Extreme heat also places intense strain on public infrastructure and essential resources that residents depend on. Heatwaves overwhelm the U.S. grid, leading to cancellations and delays. During the July heatwave, PJM, our regional grid manager, issued a federal alert to cut electricity consumption across its territory, which impacted all D.C. residents and resulted in higher AC bills and even blackouts. Amtrak also stated that trains would run at reduced speeds and people could experience delays throughout the day. D.C. summers have always been hot, but climate change is making extreme heatwaves more frequent, intense, and dangerous.

National Research Council. 2026. Attribution of Extreme Weather and Climate Events and Their Impacts.  DC and Beyond: Scientists Link Extreme Heatwaves to Climate Change

World Weather Attribution (WWA), an international network of scientists, conducts rapid studies of extreme events to determine the influence of climate change. A recent article by WWA analyzed this heatwave and determined that the combination of heat and humidity experienced in early July would have been virtually impossible without climate change.

These kinds of attribution studies are becoming more crucial in lawsuits focused on holding fossil fuel companies financially responsible for climate-related damages. Researchers can even trace aspects of these damages to specific emission sources and fossil fuel companies that are responsible for the largest share of emissions.

What We’re Doing: Make Polluters Pay Campaign

D.C. residents are already paying the price of climate change in higher utility bills, increased hospital visits, and strains on public systems that families rely on, particularly in minority, overburdened, and underserved communities. CCAN Action Fund’s Make Polluters Pay campaign aims to take the burden off of taxpayers and put it on the shoulders of the largest, most polluting fossil fuel companies. Climate change could cost every D.C. resident born in 2024 an extra $500,000 to 1 million over their lifetime. Meanwhile, in the same year, the largest fossil-fuel emitters’ profits totaled more than $102,000,000,000.

In June, the D.C. Council passed the Greenhouse Gas Emissions Study Amendment Act to kickstart a study to determine the total financial cost of climate change on D.C. and how exactly extreme weather impacts the city. The results would help guide investments towards heatwave relief, flood protection, and public infrastructure and transportation improvements and so much more. Sign the Make Polluters Pay petition to make sure the biggest fossil fuel companies cover the costs of climate change-related extreme weather damages.

Sign the Petition to Make Polluters Pay!

About the author: Macy Brigham-Hill (she/her) is the DC Campaign Intern for summer 2026. In her role, she supports the DC team by assisting with community outreach, organizing, and coalition-building to advance campaign goals. She is a rising senior at Tulane University, where she is working towards a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Studies and Sociology, with a minor in Climate Change: Science and Practice.

Macy’s passion for environmental advocacy began at a young age, shaped by her love of nature and animals. She hopes to pursue a career in environmental policy, advocacy, and research, working at the intersection of climate adaptation and mitigation within communities most vulnerable to climate impacts.

The post DC Summers Are Getting More Extreme and Expensive – Who’s Responsible? appeared first on Chesapeake Climate Action Network.

EWG evaluation of food chemicals: ADA rcoleman August 4, 2026 David Andrews, Ph.D. Sydney Evans, MPH Dayna de Montagnac, MPH Tasha Stoiber, Ph.D. Jump to: What is ADA and why is it added to foods? Where is ADA found in foods? What is the regulatory status of ADA? Are foods containing ADA ultra-processed? Is ADA allowed in organic foods? What are the potential health harms associated with ADA? Uncertainties/where more research is needed More details about ADA Cited resources August 4, 2026 EWG’s recommendation

Azodicarbonamide, also known as ADA, is an ingredient of concern. EWG suggests limiting consumption of foods containing this ingredient.

Experimental studies have demonstrated that baking bread made with ADA-treated flour results in the formation of SEM, which has been the focus of toxicological concern because laboratory and animal studies have suggested carcinogenic and genotoxic potential.

Science analysis

What is ADA and why is it added to foods?

ADA is a dough strengthener and flour bleaching agent. It is used to improve the texture of dough and brighten the appearance of flour.

Where is ADA found in foods?

ADA is typically found in breads, deli sandwiches and frozen appetizers. 

ADA is used in 60 of the 172,081 foods added to EWG’s Food Scores between 2023 and 2025, demonstrating that ADA is now used in only a small fraction of newly introduced food products. 

Top 15 food and drink categories organized by supermarket shelf Image

Source: EWG’s Food Scores. Product Label created between 2023-01-01 and 2025-10-22.

What is the regulatory status of ADA?

The European Union never authorized ADA as a food additive but did allow it as a blowing agent (a substance that helps create foam) in food-contact plastics. In 2004, the EU prohibited the use of ADA in jar seals and gaskets intended for food contact because of concerns about the formation of SEM during heat sterilization. 

A European Food Safety Authority panel concluded after review of commissioned research that SEM shows weak carcinogenic activity in lab animals and weak genotoxicity in vitro, but newer studies showed a lack of genotoxicity. The new information reduced concerns and the panel concluded the risk to human health was low, but the ban remains. 

Because of toxicity concerns, ADA is also banned as a food additive in Brazil, China, India and New Zealand.

ADA is regulated as an approved direct food additive in 1962 and permitted for use in the U.S. up to 45 parts per million in cereal flour and as dough conditioner in bread.

In 2026, the Food and Drug Administration launched a formal post-market safety assessment of ADA. The agency opened a public request for data targeting current use levels, dietary exposures and the presence of its toxic decomposition byproducts, such as semicarbazide and urethane, in the food supply.

Are foods containing ADA ultra-processed?

As an industrially synthesized ingredient, ADA is classified as an ultra-processed ingredient in the NOVA framework. (Monteiro et al., 2019). 

Is ADA allowed in organic foods?

Under Department of Agriculture organic standards, synthetic substances, such as ADA, are prohibited in certified organic foods. 

What are the potential health harms associated with ADA?

Health concerns about ADA arise mainly because of the byproducts that form when it breaks down, especially during heating.

During dough preparation and baking, ADA breaks down into several compounds, including biurea, semicarbazide (SEM), ammonia and isocyanates. Experimental studies have demonstrated that baking bread made with ADA-treated flour results in the formation of SEM (Noonan et al., 2008). Laboratory and animal studies have raised toxicological concerns about SEM because they suggest it has carcinogenic and genotoxic potential (Kumari et al., 2026). 

The formation of SEM during baking and other high-temperature food processing was first characterized in experimental studies of ADA-treated flour and bread (Noonan et al., 2008; Becalski et al., 2004). In a 2016 survey of over 250 products, the FDA found levels of SEM can vary widely. The agency found that many products fell into a median range, between 100 and 400 parts per billion (ppb) but maximum outliers reached as high as 767 ppb for biscuits and 1,490 ppb for French and Vienna breads (FDA 2016).

SEM has produced tumors in mice and demonstrated DNA-damaging activity in mechanistic studies. Although in vivo genotoxicity findings are inconsistent, the combination of carcinogenicity and genotoxic potential raises concerns (EFSA 2005; Hirakawa 2003).

A rodent study found SEM to have hormone-disrupting properties, altering testosterone regulation in male and female rats (Maranghi et al., 2009). SEM has also shown it can harm the reproductive system, affecting sperm maturation in male mice even at low doses (Tian et al., 2014). Animal studies have shown the metabolite may also damage other organs, such as the heart, liver and kidneys (Tian et al., 2014; Olofinnade et al., 2020).

Baking foods with ADA can produce small amounts of urethane, or ethyl carbamate. This process contaminant forms when ethanol from yeast fermentation reacts with cyanate or carbamoyl-containing compounds, which can be derived from ADA's direct breakdown products like isocyanic acid. Urethane is a Group 2A probable human carcinogen (Abt et al., 2021). 

Repeated exposure to ADA led to dose-dependent decreases in weight and food consumption, oxidative stress and lipid peroxidation in rats (Olafinnade et al., 2020). Oxidative stress and lipid peroxidation can cause cellular and DNA damage and are implicated in numerous diseases. 

The breakdown to SEM is a concern for both foods and contact materials containing ADA, specifically in gaskets used in lids for glass baby food jars (Nepalia et al 2017). 

Uncertainties/where more research is needed

Although experimental studies suggest that ADA and its breakdown products may contribute to oxidative stress, inflammation, DNA damage, reproductive toxicity, and alterations to the gut microbiome, the available evidence is derived largely from in vitro and animal studies, and important data gaps remain (Lieshchova et al., 2023). The long-term health effects of chronic dietary ADA exposure in humans also remain poorly characterized (Kumari et al., 2026). 

More details about ADA

ADA was used as a foaming agent in the production of plastic gaskets in glass jars. When its metabolite semicarbazide was found to contaminate foods in glass containers, including baby food, the EU banned its use in food contact materials. Under market pressure, brands have phased it out in global markets, although it is still technically allowed in lids in the U.S. 

Whole Foods Market prohibits ADA in products sold in its stores. Aldi and Walmart have policies restricting ADA in many or all of their private-label food products. Panera and Subway removed ADA from their bread products in 2014. 

ADA is also used in foamed plastics, such as those used to make yoga mats.

Cited resources

Global health and regulatory agencies

• EFSA Panel on Food Additives, Flavourings, Processing Aids and Materials in Contact with Food, 2005. Opinion of the Scientific Panel on food additives, flavourings, processing aids and materials in contact with food (AFC) related to Semicarbazide in food. EFSA Journal 2005; 3(6):219, 141 pp. doi:10.2903/j.efsa.2005.219 
• International Agency for Research on Cancer. (1983). Some food additives, feed additives and naturally occurring substances. https://publications.iarc.fr/Book-And-Report-Series/Iarc-Monographs-On-The-Evaluation-Of-Carcinogenic-Risks-To-Humans/Some-Food-Additives-Feed-Additives-And-Naturally-Occurring-Substances-1983 

Comprehensive reviews and frameworks

• Abt, E., Incorvati, V., Posnick Robin, L. and Redan, B.W., 2021. Occurrence of Ethyl Carbamate in Foods and Beverages: Review of the Formation Mechanisms, Advances in Analytical Methods, and Mitigation Strategies. Journal of Food Protection, 84(12), pp. 2195-2212 https://doi.org/10.4315/JFP-21-219. 
• Kumari, D., Janmeda, P., & Singh, D. (2026). From food additive to health hazard? A review of azodicarbonamide, potassium bromate, and monosodium glutamate with in-silico toxicity analysis. Food Chemistry Advances, 10, 101239. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.focha.2026.101239. 
• Monteiro, C.A., Cannon, G., Levy, R.B., Moubarac, J., Louzada, M.L., Rauber, F., Khandpur, N., Cediel, G., Neri, D., Martinez-Steele, E., Baraldi, L.G., & Jaime, P.C. (2019). Ultra-processed foods: what they are and how to identify them. Public Health Nutrition, 22(5), 936–941. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1368980018003762.
• Nepalia, A., Singh, A., Mathur, N., & Pareek, S. (2017). Baby foods can also have toxic side effects: A review. Asian Journal of Science and Technology, 8(3), 4386-4393.
• Tian, W., Sang, Y., & Wang, X. (2014). Semicarbazide – from state-of-the-art analytical methods and exposure to toxicity: a review. Food Additives & Contaminants Part A, 31(11), 1850–1860. https://doi.org/10.1080/19440049.2014.953012. 

Legislation

• Commission Directive 2004/1/EC of 6 January 2004 amending Directive 2002/72/EC as regards the suspension of the use of azodicarbonamide as blowing agent, Official Journal of the European Union, L 7/45. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2004:007:0045:0046:EN:PDF.

Specific health impact studies

• Becalski A, Lau BP-Y, Lewis D, Seaman SW. (2004). Semicarbazide Formation in Azodicarbonamide-Treated Flour: A Model Study. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 52(18), 5730–5734. doi: 10.1021/jf0495385
• Food and Drug Administration, 2016. Exposure Estimate for Semicarbazide from the Use of Azodicarbonamide in Bread for the U.S. Population. (Presented at the 251st National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, March 15, 2016). https://www.fda.gov/media/97444/download.  
• Hirakawa K, Midorikawa K, Oikawa S, Kawanishi S. (2003). Carcinogenic semicarbazide induces sequence-specific DNA damage through the generation of reactive oxygen species and the derived organic radicals. Mutation Research/Fundamental and Molecular Mechanisms of Mutagenesis. 2003;536(1–2):91–101. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1383-5718(03)00030-5 
• Lieshchova, M., Logvinova, V., Bilan, M., Bohomaz, A., & Brygadyrenko, V. (2023). Effect of azodicarbonamide on rats with a high-fat hypercaloric diet. Acta Fytotechnica et Zootechnica, 26(1), 15-27. https://doi.org/10.15414/afz.2023.26.01.15-27. 
• Maranghi, F., Tassinari, R., Marcoccia, D., Altieri, I., Catone, T., De Angelis, G., Testai, E., Mastrangelo, S., Evandri, M. G., Bolle, P., & Lorenzetti, S. (2009). The food contaminant semicarbazide acts as an endocrine disrupter: Evidence from an integrated in vivo/in vitro approach. Chemico-Biological Interactions, 183(1), 40-48. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cbi.2009.09.016. 
• Olofinnade, A.T., Onaolapo, A.Y., Onaolapo, O.J., Olowe, O.A., & Adeyeba, O.A. (2020b). Food-added azodicarbonamide alters hematological parameters, antioxidant status and biochemical/histomorphological indices of liver and kidney injury in rats. Journal of Basic and Clinical Physiology and Pharmacology, 32(2), 39-50. https://doi.org/10.1515/jbcpp-2019-0341. 

This is a re-post from By the Numbers by Hannah Ritchie

Over the last week, this chart of wildfire burn in Europe has been doing the rounds on social media and traditional media outlets. Carbon Brief goes through some of this coverage here.

The underlying narrative is that Europe is having its lowest wildfire year on record, which is quite at odds with the huge wildfires we see from France and Spain on the news.

But this data and the media headlines are not as contradictory as they first appear.

The wildfire data we present on Our World in Data comes from the Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS). This uses satellite imagery, which doesn’t distinguish, for example, between forest fires and large-scale burning of agricultural land, grasslands, or savannah.

Its aggregate category “Europe” includes Russia. On OWID, we also have predefined regions across our datasets, and Russia falls under “Europe”.

Russia, as a country, is split between Europe and Asia. Most of its landmass lies in Asia, but most of its population is on the European side. Since most of our datasets, from poverty and inequality, to health, education, energy consumption and access to resources, are about human activity and outcomes, assigning Russia to Europe usually makes more sense. That’s not so much the case for the few metrics — like wildfires — that concern land mass.

As Russia is big, the European numbers are heavily influenced by what’s happening there. This is something that’s true of aggregate wildfire data more broadly. The global numbers are heavily influenced by what’s happening in Africa, for example.

It can be true that the world is having a low wildfire year, while Europe is having a high one. Or that Europe is having a low wildfire year, and particular countries within Europe are battling huge outbreaks. There is no inconsistency there.

To provide more regional insight, we added an entity called “Europe (excluding Russia)” and already had one for the “European Union (27)”.

What does the European data look like if we remove Russia?

It’s no longer the lowest wildfire year on record, but still fairly quiet for this time of year. Russia is not the only explanation.

What if we look at the European Union?

It is higher again, with a particular uptick in the last week. It’s around 40% higher than the median year since 2012, and the 5th highest in that record.

At Our World in Data we use GWIS as our main source, since we want the global picture. But Europe also has the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS). It stretches back to 2006, and tries to filter out agricultural burning to focus on forest fires.

Its data has the EU running at its 2nd highest level for this time of year.

Underneath this trend from either source is a stark regional split. Many countries in Western Europe are having a bad wildfire year. Those in the Balkans and Southern Europe, a comparatively quiet one.1

The bar chart below shows how wildfire burn at this stage of the year compares to the median over the past 15 years. A figure of 2 means it’s twice as high as the median; 0.3 means wildfire burn is around one-third.

Countries such as France, Spain, Germany, and Portugal are well above the average for this time of year. But countries such as Romania, Greece, and Croatia are well below.

For France, it’s not just that wildfire burn is higher than usual. It’s seeing record-breaking fires for this time of the year. You can see this in the panel chart below.

Compare that to Greece, where wildfires are tracking for their lowest levels since 2012.

This matters for the aggregate European, or EU, figures.

Let’s take that same chart, but make the y-axis scale the same across all countries. Some countries simply contribute far more to the total than others. France is breaking records — which obviously matters a lot for its national figures — but it doesn’t have a huge impact on the region’s overall numbers. A really big year in Portugal, Italy, Romania or Spain does make a big difference. But the relatively high year in Spain is “offset” by a low year for Romania.

That’s really the point: some countries are having really severe wildfire outbreaks, affecting huge population centres and landscapes. That France is struggling this summer is not a lie or just media hype. It can also be true that others offset this with quiet years in the regional totals.

The anomaly in France this year is even clearer when we look at the weekly wildfire burn. The spike you see in the chart below was far higher than any other week in France’s record since 2012. The speed and intensity of wildfire outbreaks is arguably more important for the impact on communities than just the total area burned.

What about global wildfires this year?

What if we zoom out to look at data across all regions?

Here they are, with the y-axis scales the same. It really is a low year for wildfires globally. Most of that is explained by low wildfire burn in Africa. A lot of Africa’s wildfires are about agricultural burning, and fires on grasslands and savannahs. South America is also having a quiet year, so far.

Europe and North America, in particular, have little bearing on the global total, simply because they’re so small. Europe without Russia has even less so.

 

1 Much of the burning in the Balkans is related to agricultural land practices, which differ from how people think about forest fires.

Dirty Dozen™ food chemicals: ADA Iris Myers August 4, 2026 EWG’s recommendation

Avoid or limit foods containing azodicarbonamide, or ADA.

ADA breaks down during baking into several compounds, including semicarbazide, or SEM. Laboratory and animal studies suggest SEM may damage genetic material or cause cancer. 

What is ADA?

ADA is a dough strengthener and flour bleaching agent. It is used to improve the texture of dough and brighten the appearance of flour.

Outside of the food industry, it’s used as a chemical foaming agent for the foam rubber in yoga mats.

Which foods contain ADA?

ADA is typically found in bread, deli sandwiches and frozen appetizers.

Look for ADA in product ingredient lists, usually below or next to the Nutrition Facts panel, on the back of the package. It may also appear as “azodicarbonamide.”

How is ADA regulated?

The Food and Drug Administration is responsible for overseeing food additives and other ingredients. ADA is allowed for use in food at up to 45 parts per million in cereal flour and dough conditioner in bread. 

In 2026, the FDA began a new safety review of ADA, requesting public input on current use levels, dietary exposures and the presence of toxic breakdown byproducts like SEM and urethane in the food supply. EWG submitted comments to the FDA on ADA, citing potential health concerns in urging the agency to ban its use in food. 

The European Union never authorized ADA as a food additive, though it did allow it in food-contact plastics. The EU banned ADA from all food contact materials in 2004 over the potential carcinogenicity of SEM, which forms during high-heat sterilization of glass jars. 

A later European Food Safety Authority review found newer studies showed ADA did not harm genetic material and concluded the risk to human health was low. But the ban remains in place. 

ADA is also banned as a food additive in Brazil, China, India and New Zealand because of toxicity concerns.

In the U.S., ADA is prohibited in food certified as organic under Agriculture Department standards, which bar synthetic substances.

What does the science say about ADA?

The metabolite SEM forms when ADA is used in flour and bread during baking and other high-heat food processing – a finding first documented in the mid-2000s. In a 2016 survey of more than 250 products, the FDA found SEM levels vary widely across foods.

SEM has caused tumors in mice and shows some evidence of potential DNA harm. While the DNA-damaging effects aren’t consistent across all studies, the combination of cancer-causing and DNA-harming potential may be cause for concern.

One animal study found SEM interfered with testosterone regulation in both male and female rats. Another found it can impair the male reproductive system, affecting sperm in mice even at low doses. Animal studies have also linked SEM exposure to potential damage in other organs, including the heart, liver and kidneys.

Find out more

Learn more about recommendations relating to ADA – and the full EWG Dirty Dozen™ list of food chemicals – on EWG’s research page.

EWG’s Food Scores provides ratings for more than 150,000 foods and drinks based on nutrition, ingredients and processing concerns. Food Scores flags unhealthy ultra-processed foods to help you identify alternatives.

EWG’s free, searchable Skin Deep® cosmetic database helps to identify harmful chemicals in personal care and beauty products. EWG Verified® products meet EWG’s strictest criteria for ingredient transparency and health.

And the Healthy Living app lets you take these tools with you on the go.

Areas of Focus Food Ultra-Processed Foods Food Chemicals Authors Sarah Reinhardt, MPH, RDN Dayna de Montagnac, MPH August 5, 2026

In the middle of a hot afternoon, between the glistening ocean and pristine white sands, I walk my wagon along the shoreline. Within the wagon is my umbrella, beach chair, binoculars, a camera, a...

The conversation around data centers in Eastern Kentucky has rapidly picked up pace since we first wrote about them in November 2025 and looked at the Kentucky General Assembly’s proposals in March of this year. To help our community members and local leaders better understand the landscape, we have compiled the resource list below. This list includes Eastern Kentucky counties with current data center moratoriums, resources from partner organizations, notable projects, and feedback from elected officials. 

Mountain Association believes in community-led, transparent data center development that recognizes the importance of community benefits agreements between developers and local government. 

In-depth resources about data center development and impact: 

Data Center Development Considerations for Kentucky Communities [Blueprint Kentucky] 

The Rapid Growth of Data Centers [Kentucky Conservation Committee] 

See where data center developers are looking to build in Kentucky [Kentucky Lantern] 

Data centers in Kentucky: Resources & Information [Kentucky Resources Council] 

The largest two electrical providers in the region’s pages on data centers: 

East Kentucky Power Cooperative: Data Centers 

Kentucky Power: Data Centers Help Support Long-Term Affordability 

As of August 2026, ten out of fifty-four Appalachian counties in Kentucky have passed data center moratoriums. 

Adair | Six-month halt on data centers in effect in City of Columbia [July 8, 2026] 

Bell | Bell County passes data center moratorium, halting construction for 2 years [July 2, 2026] 

Boyd | Boyd County freezes new data centers for six months, but EastPark project is exempt [July 10, 2026] 

Edmonson | Edmonson County Fiscal Court Enacts One-Year Moratorium on New Data Centers, AI Facilities, and Crypto Mining Operations [June 8, 2026] 

Greenup | Greenup County places moratorium on data centers — Hall on TeraWulf, not included in the pause: ‘We would not do anything to harm this county’ [July 17, 2026] 

Laurel | London City Council passes 2-year data center moratorium [August 3, 2026] 

Letcher | County orders two-year halt on data centers [July 22, 2026] 

Metcalfe | Data Center Moratorium Passed [July 27, 2026] 

Nicholas | The Court approved a one-year moratorium on data centers and windmills in Nicholas County [July 10, 2026] 

Russell | Update from Mayor Simpson Regarding Data Center Moratorium in Russell [July 10, 2026] 

Notable Projects: 

Boyd County: TeraWulf announces plans to build data center in Boyd County, Kentucky [WCHS / May 27, 2026] 

Boyd/Greenup County: Kentucky’s biggest data center project to date eyes former steel mill [Courier Journal / July 22, 2206] 

Letcher County: Eastern KY officials sign secretive deal with data center venture to explore off-grid power [Herald Leader / July 16, 2026] 

Pike County: City leaders evaluating proposed data center in Pikeville, Ky. [WCHS / June 23, 2026] 

News related to the Kentucky General Assembly’s and data centers:  

OPINION: KENTUCKY CAN LEAD ON DATA CENTERSWITHOUT LEAVING COMMUNITIES BEHIND [Kentucky Senate President Robert Stivers (R-Manchester) / August 3, 2026] 

Is Kentucky About to Give Billions in Tax Breaks to Data Centers? [KyPolicy / July 23, 2026] 

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