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Human activity has disrupted the innate capacity of Earth’s natural systems to create a stable, healthy climate and atmosphere. The solutions are hiding in plain sight, inherent in the web of biological diversity that creates the conditions conducive to life. In this episode from our Nature’s Genius Series, Wade Crowfoot, California Secretary for Natural Resources, describes how the world’s fourth largest economy is putting natural systems at the center of its bold policies and practices to help restore the biosphere and, in turn, sustain the long-term habitability of planet Earth for human civilization.

This is an episode of Nature’s Genius, a Bioneers podcast series exploring how the sentient symphony of life holds the solutions we need to balance human civilization with living systems. Visit the series page to learn more.

Featuring

Wade Crowfoot, California’s Natural Resources Secretary since 2019, leads efforts to conserve California’s environment and natural resources, overseeing an agency charged with stewarding the state’s forests, natural lands, rivers, water supplies, coasts, wildlife and biodiversity, as well as helping oversee its world-leading clean energy transition.

Credits

• Executive Producer: Kenny Ausubel
• Written by: Kenny Ausubel and Cathy Edwards
• Senior Producer and Station Relations: Stephanie Welch
• Associate Producer and Program Engineer: Emily Harris
• Host and Consulting Producer: Neil Harvey
• Production Assistance: Mika Anami
• Graphic Design: Megan Howe
• Interview conducted by Teo Grossman and recorded at KPFA studios by Mike Kohn and Rod Akil

Resources

Wade Crowfoot – California’s Leadership in Nature-Based Solutions: Building Climate Resilience Through Ecosystem Restoration | Bioneers 2025 Keynote

Pathways to 30×30 Progress Report

Global Safety Net App – launched by One Earth and the Nature Data Lab in collaboration with an int’l group of scientists and conservation organizations

Subscribe to the Bioneers: Revolution from The Heart of Nature podcast

Transcript

Neil Harvey (Host): As the climate emergency deconstructs human civilization faster than a lobbyist can buy a politician, societies are being forced to find real solutions.

Until fairly recently, virtually all the solutions applied to address climate change have focused on scaling technology, such as renewable energy, which would lower our reliance on burning fossil fuels. Although these approaches are crucial, by themselves they’re insufficient. We’ve also got to achieve significant carbon drawdown because the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is already in the red zone, exceeding viable planetary boundaries.

This technology-centric approach also ignores the clear data that the large-scale human destruction of ecosystems over the past 12,000 years, including by agriculture, has released massive amounts of atmospheric CO2. Some estimates range as high as one third to half. Human activity has disrupted the innate capacity of Earth’s natural systems to create a stable, healthy climate and atmosphere.

The solution hiding in plain sight is to restore the capacity of Earth’s natural systems to heal themselves and sequester the carbon back where it belongs. It’s the intricate web of biological diversity that creates the very conditions conducive to life that all life depends upon, including us wayward humans.

Nature knows how to do everything we need to do, but without mining the past or mortgaging the future. Enter nature-based solutions.

As Secretary of the California Natural Resources Agency, Wade Crowfoot is responsible for identifying nature-based solutions and putting them into State policy. He spoke at a Bioneers conference.

Wade Crowfoot speaking at Bioneers 2025. Photo: Nikki Ritcher

Wade Crowfoot (WC): California is one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots – scientists say one of 36 hotspots in the world. We have more endemic species in California than almost any place on Earth—40 percent of our plant species in California only grow in California.

But we also rely on our nature and our natural systems. Our natural systems are what keeps us together and alive. We talk about ecosystems and sometimes we think ‘eco’ means environment, that’s just fish and wildlife. ‘Eco’ is the Greek translation of home. These are our home systems. So those watersheds that we’re working to protect are providing our water, and when those watersheds burn up in catastrophic wildlife like they have over the past decade, that is a huge threat to our life as humans in California. So, yes, we’re protecting nature for biodiversity; yes, we’re protecting nature for non-human life; but we’re also protecting nature for ourselves.

And that’s really been the Aha moment in the last decade, where across the world, scientists have told us that, yes, attacking climate change is about solar energy and electric vehicles, and building efficiency, but it’s also about protecting and restoring nature.

I want to tell you something encouraging, and I think it’s important to have encouragement at this time—I call it hope with an action plan—and the fact is nature is finding its way centrally into the work of governments, not only in California, across the United States and across the world. And big things are happening.

So let me skip to the big things because I think it’s really exciting to share with you that after a decadal movement by tribal leaders in California, the largest river restoration project in American history in the Klamath River Basin. [APPLAUSE] Four dams, four defunct dams have been removed that’s restoring over 400 miles of salmon habitat, critically important. [APPLAUSE] Critically important to the survival of salmon and the survival of the Yurok and the Karuk people, salmon people. And I can tell you that institutions like the agency that I lead, for decades, told tribal leaders that it would never happen, it could never happen.

But here’s the most remarkable thing. Those dams came down in the fall, and biologists said it’s going to take a handful of years to understand if salmon are actually going to recolonize this watershed, that are actually going to come back in. Do you know how long it took? Ten days. Ten days. [CHEERS] 6,000 salmon were monitored ten days later getting through that first dam, and it was ten weeks later that the first salmon were identified far up into Oregon in that top headwaters of the restored habitat. Nature is resilient if we give it half a chance.

Klamath River restoration. Photo: YancyDarringer / Shutterstock

Go 400 miles to the south to Los Angeles on what we think is the world’s largest land-based wildlife crossing—the Wallis Annenberg Crossing—connecting two critical habitats for—areas of habitat for the endangered Southern California mountain lion. That’s a wildlife crossing that’s crossing ten lanes of traffic and a two-land frontage road. Many people—most people said it could never get done—it was too big, it was too audacious, it was too complicated, could never happen.

The fact is, great things are happening across California and our country. The California condor is back. I was up with a Yurok biologist releasing California condor into their native habitat in far Northern California. The gray wolves are back in California, and have made their way into the Southern Sierra. And, yes, the beavers are back. [APPLAUSE]

Host: By giving nature a chance to heal itself, these successes profoundly enrich these landscapes.

The term ‘nature-based solution’ first arose in the 1980s among visionary ecologists and biologists, but only gained official global recognition in 2022. What started as an outlier has become a legitimate and increasing priority for effective climate action.

But what exactly constitutes a nature-based solution, and what do the approaches look like in practice? The basic question to ask is: “how would nature do it?” 

WC: So when we talk about nature-based solutions, a whole lot of people that don’t do this work really have a hard time understanding what we mean, so I often say, look, this is helping nature help us. When nature thrives, people thrive. And nature needs us and we need nature. 

At the end of the day, in order to survive and thrive, we need clean and abundant water, we need clean air, we need safety from these environmental extremes like wildfire, and actually restoring the health of nature helps us with this. 

So take, for example, on flooding. We are experiencing California increasing wet—water extremes. So the dry periods are getting drier – the droughts; wet periods are getting more intense, and frankly dangerous. And what we’ve realized over time is that one of the best solutions to protect communities from flooding are letting the rivers roam as they used to during certain times of the year. We have these seasonal floodplains across our country that we’ve essentially cut off. We’ve channelized our rivers and we’ve protected communities by creating higher and higher walls or levees around those rivers. And, in fact, by letting the rivers roam out of their river channel at certain times of the year in a safe and well-planned way is remarkable for reducing downstream flood risk.

Where I live in Sacramento, California is one of the most flood prone cities in the United States, where the confluence of two rivers. And it is these floodplains that’s actually protecting us upriver. And we’re working to expand those. 

And what’s really incredible is those floodplains not only protect us from flooding, they are incredible habitat for salmon and other fish that, frankly, have lost a lot of that habitat over time. There are places that seasonal waterfowl and migratory birds are using. They’re even recharging our groundwater basins which are the savings account for water supply. So that’s just one great example where it’s a nature-based solution.

So let’s talk about another extreme – heat. So we’ve experienced worsening heat waves in California. Some people talk about the fact that Los Angeles, over the coming decades, will begin to experience a climate more like Phoenix, Arizona. And when you think about a huge place like Los Angeles, it’s covered in concrete. We know that we can reduce the surface temperatures during these really hot periods through a really simple solution, which is trees. Right? Trees and green spaces reduce the surface temperature and provide shade.

So we’ve invested more than ever in helping generate or create more street trees in neighborhoods that don’t have them, greening schoolyards so that kids, when they’re outside, can be under shaded trees, or if they’re playing, they’re playing on grass or a soft surface. We know from science that the difference between neighborhood temperatures in Los Angeles on a very hot day is more than ten degrees between those places that have a lot of trees and a lot of green space versus those places in concrete. That’s a nature-based solution. 

It’s exciting when you talk to people about examples. Everybody loves the idea of greening a schoolyard. People love the idea of letting rivers roam into seasonal floodplains where it’s safe and possible. Folks love the idea of taking your organic compost and turning it into healthy soil that’s growing vegetables that you can buy in your local grocery store. These are all ideas that are not hard. They don’t involve complicated technologies. They do involve paradigm shifts, though, and they do involve thinking differently. So from my perspective, nature based solutions are all about helping nature, restoring natural processes to benefit people.

Host: In truth, many nature-based solutions are found in ancient Indigenous traditional ecological knowledge systems. What’s old is new again.

One striking example is indigenous use of fire.

WC: Across the West, we face remarkably challenging conditions with catastrophic wildfire. Right? Hotter, drier conditions. What’s amazing is, while we need to continue to improve our response and firefighters and technology, that’s all important, but the biggest solution is right in front of our nose in California, and that is reconnecting with traditional practices from our Indigenous communities. 

California Native American tribes for thousands of years were practicing fire, prescribed fire, safe, low-level fire to reduce the density of our forests and reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire. They were even managing water temperatures by creating smoke in the summer to keep water cold for salmon and other migrating fish.

Chinook Salmon returning to their home rivers to spawn. Photo: Karel Bock / Shutterstock

What’s remarkable is for over a century, the agency that I lead outlawed this practice and was literally arresting, and in some cases, charging felonies to tribal members that were putting good fire back on the ground. And fast forward, now we’re working to scale up this practice across the state, and it’s one of our primary strategies to reduce catastrophic wildfire risk. And we’re partnering and learning from those tribal communities that have been practicing this—you know, good fire. 

So to me, these nature-based solutions are all around us. We just have to get out of this box we’ve created ourselves to recognize them.

Host: Ancient Indigenous and traditional ecological knowledge and the leadership of First Peoples have become foundational elements of California’s nature-based solutions policy. What had long been violent historical conflicts are starting to transform into respectful partnerships.

WC: The Karuk Tribe in the Klamath Basin has been among the most powerful teachers for me and my team. So this is a tribe that is a salmon tribe, and they have lived in this far northern region of California, along with the Yurok people and others for—since time immemorial. And they have been practicing good fire for thousands of years. They really led a movement over the last decade to push the state to recognize the critical importance of this work, and then not only to, you know, legitimize the practice under the law, but then actually to drive or to advance their tribal sovereignty, their ability to actually burn. 

It’s been fascinating to get up there and actually get on those lands and learn from the practitioners. The thing that blows me away is – with nature-based solutions – is, in so many cases, it’s sort of back to the future. It’s these Indigenous practices. 

So we’re really excited. From our perspective in California, you know, to protect our residents, to actually achieve our what we think are world-leading targets to achieve carbon neutrality or net zero carbon in 20 years, we have to restore the health of our lands and waters, and it starts by learning from the original stewards of the land.

Host: We’ll hear more from Wade Crowfoot when we return.

I’m Neil Harvey. You’re listening to the Bioneers: Revolution from the Heart of Nature.

If you’d like to learn more about the extraordinary intelligence of life inherent in fungi, plants, and animals, subscribe to our Earthlings newsletter. In each issue, we delve into captivating stories and research that promise to reshape your perception of our fellow Earthlings – and point toward a profound shift in how we all inhabit this planet together. You can subscribe at bioneers.org/earthlings. 

Host: In 2016, the revered Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson published his landmark book, “Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life.” In it, he advocated for the formal legal protection of the biodiversity and ecosystem health of fully half of Earth’s lands and waters.

The clarion call was a recognition that human existence depends entirely on the health and viability of our ecosystems.

Since that time, a global movement has arisen. Called “30 by 30,” it’s a first step toward Half Earth to protect and restore 30% of Earth’s lands and waters by 2030.

Progress is difficult to measure, but most assessments warn that collective efforts are nowhere near reaching the 2030 goal. According to Protected Planet and the One Earth Global Safety Net, only around 17-18 % of terrestrial land is being formally protected, and only 9-10% of marine habitats – not much progress since E.O. Wilson called for saving half of the Earth a decade before. Conserving the ocean is especially challenging because most of it isn’t owned by anyone, so getting agreements on paper has proven difficult.

The good news is that the state of California is farther ahead. It adopted the 30×30 approach as state law and developed some of the strongest possible standards for adopting nature-based solutions. By 2026, California had conserved 27% of lands and nearly 22% of coastal waters. That means three and a half million acres of counted conserved lands have been added since the initiative began in 2022, more than half way to the state’s conservation goal. Of course, there’s much more to be done.

WC: California has a road map to achieve carbon neutrality. So that’s slashing our pollution. But we realize that in an economy like California, fourth largest in the world, we’re never going to completely eliminate pollution. There’s some really tough industries to reduce emissions. So in order to reach that net zero or carbon neutrality, we need to sequester. We need to remove and store carbon at much larger levels than we have. 

It starts with these nature-based solutions. We all learned in fifth grade that plants absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen. And when our lands are healthy, our soils are healthy, our trees and forests are healthy, they sequester more carbon than they release. Our landscapes in the West and in California are unhealthy. 

And so now for the first time we’re quantifying the amount of emissions that come off our lands, and we’ve set a specific target to reduce the emissions of those lands, ultimately making the lands a carbon sink. 

So things like healthy soils. We have so much organic waste that it’s actually not a form of waste, it’s actually an asset. That’s organic content. If we can actually vastly expand organic content into the soils, create healthier soils across a meaningful swath of California ag lands, this means significant carbon sequestration. And oh, by the way, remarkable water retention, more efficiency of our water usage in a state that’s experiencing greater droughts. 

So those nature-based solution targets that are holding us accountable to really drive land use practices, changing and improving the health of our landscapes, again, so we can achieve carbon neutrality, but also achieve all these other benefits. 

Host: Conserving and restoring nature are effective ways to heal societal and environmental harms – and they’re also also intensely popular. Wade Crowfoot finds that nature-based solutions have unusually broad public support that can transcend even extreme polarization of partisan politics.

WC: People love the outdoors and people love nature. Our state park system, the largest in the country, is beloved by rural people, urban people, north, south, Republicans, Democrats. Our public lands are revered by folks across the ideological spectrum.

So when you talk about these common sense improvements that provide benefits by using nature, or building the health of nature, I really do think it breaks through some of the ideological differences, or even the partisan differences. And at the end of the day, the great thing about, you know, this set of actions we call nature-based solutions, is, yes, it’s about combating climate change, but we don’t have to talk about that if—for somebody who doesn’t recognize that science, right? The great thing about these solutions is they’re multi-beneficial. So we can talk about them in different ways that really resonate with a range of people.

Hiker in Redwood National and State Parks. Photo: Nik Shuliahin / Unsplash

Host: California helped create the Mediterranean Climate Action Partnership in 15 regions that have similar climates, across five continents.

These states and provinces aren’t waiting for their federal governments to mobilize. Instead they’re collaborating directly to share knowledge and solutions that can migrate around the world.

Wade Crowfoot notes that advancing and scaling these nature-based solutions should also include restoring justice with First Peoples.

WC: Three months after he took office, Governor Newsom invited California tribal leaders to the future site of the Native American Heritage Center, this new tribal gathering place in Sacramento, and did something that no California governor had ever done. He offered an unconditional apology for state government’s treatment of tribes. And he read—[APPLAUSE] And he read from the inaugural address of California’s first governor, where that governor put a financial bounty on the head of Native women and children, a state sanctioned policy of genocide. And it was easily the most meaningful and impactful day in my career.

But we talked about, with the tribal leaders, that if that’s all that happened, it was importantly symbolic, but it was ultimately counter-productive because we needed to actually create a new future. So we’ve been holding ourselves accountable over the last five years to create that new future. 

What does that future look like? It looks like ancestral land return, land back. [APPLAUSE] It looks like co-stewardship, co-management of our lands, and it looks like restoring traditional ecological practices that we now desperately need in California. [APPLAUSE] 

We allocated $107 million to ancestral land return that have now facilitated 30,000 plus acres of land back to tribes. [APPLAUSE] California State Parks manages 1.6 million acres of land across California, now 57 percent of those lands in state parks are governed by co-management and co-stewardship agreements with Native American tribes. [APPLAUSE] And we are finally getting out of the way of tribes in getting cultural fire back on the landscape, which we desperately need in California. [APPLAUSE] 

So this is happening. And this will continue to happen. And I want to tell you that as we pick up the paper or, as we do now, doom scroll in the beginning of the day or the end of the night, just know that progress is being made, and it’s not just being made in California. I had a chance to lead a delegation from California of activists and tribal leaders and local government leaders to Cali, Colombia, in the fall, where we came together with countries from around the world under the United Nations Compact convention on biodiversity, and I can tell you, governments from around the world are doing things that make these—this progress look modest. And we have a network of efforts among progressive governments. And I can tell you this linkage between restoration of the environment and restoration of justice, Indigenous led, it’s found its way, as it should, into these governmental discussions, and it’s actually guiding our path forward. So my message is: In this dark, dangerous hour, don’t despair.     

Riparian brush rabbit. Photo: ranchorunner / Shutterstock

And I want to end with a story, and it’s one of my favorite stories. The San Joaquin riparian brush rabbit is this cute little rabbit that has lived in the Central Valley, the San Joaquin Valley. And as its name suggests, it lives along the rivers. It lives in those riparian zones, woodsy areas along the rivers. And we’ve lost 96 percent of our riparian habitat in the Central Valley, and we thought we lost the San Joaquin riparian brush rabbit until they found a breeding pair taking shelter under an overpass of Highway 99. […] And that breeding pair was brought into what’s called captive breeding, where they help generate more population into the dozens. […]

Well, fast forward, an incredible nonprofit named River Partners, that does these multi-benefit restoration projects, bought an area of land at the confluence of the San Joaquin and the Tuolumne Rivers, and the goal was buy it from agricultural production and re-wild it for this type of habitat, this riparian habitat. And it’s an amazing story, because we caught wind of this effort, and we decided to see if they would help us make it a state park.

And so in the course of that, they were doing biological surveys to prepare for the reintroduction of the brush rabbit, […] And during that biological survey, within that newly repaired riparian zone, only three-and-a-half years old, do you know what they found? Riparian brush rabbits. [LAUGHTER] 

Somehow these incredible bunnies have figured out a way to travel ten miles and across the river to find their new home at Dos Rios. So to me, that says never give up hope, always recognize that nature can rebound if we help nature, and this is our moment.

Host: Wade Crowfoot, Nature-Based Solutions: Hope with an Action Plan 

The post Nature-Based Solutions: Hope With an Action Plan appeared first on Bioneers.

CRA Meeting

The first CRA meeting of the month will be on Zoom, October 2 at 5pm Pacific Time. The agenda and link will be sent to the mail list. If you need the link, email admin@climaterailalliance.org.

On Friday, September 25, SeaPort air published a full page press release/advertisement in “businesswire:” ““Billions in New Trains, Same Slow Route: Boeing Field Air Service SeaPort Airlines is Making New Amtrak Trains Obsolete.”” Here is our response to that propaganda piece.

The UP-NS merger application is live at Surface Transportation Board. CRA opposes this merger. There are many ways in which this merger will have a bad outcome. Wall Street activist investors will be thrilled, however. Our colleagues at Solutionary Rail and Public Rail Now have an ongoing campaign that allows comments on the merger to be made anonymously to Surface Transportation Board.

The 2027 Washington State Legislative Session is about to begin. CRA, along with the other members of the Rail Can’t Wait Coalition have developed our Legislative Priorities for Washington, the list of things that rail transportation needs that we would like legislators to fund and enable.

The New Cascades Airo sets started service between Vancouver BC and Eugene OR on October 30. Trains will be introduced as they arrive from testing. Right now, you can see and ride them on Trains 503 and 508 between Seattle and Eugene and trains 516 and 519 between Portland and Vancouver BC.

CRA joined Solutionary Rail, Duwamish River Community Coalition, Reconnect South Park, and Georgetown Community Council in a comment letter responding to the 2026 Washington State draft Freight System Plan. The plan was effectively a plan for trucking. It contained almost no reference to rail at all, about which we commented at length.

THE SHELL LEAKS FILES: 2 OCTOBER 2026 SLF-2007-075 The Sakhalin Papers LXV: The “New Heartland” — Why Shell Deepened Its Gazprom Partnership After Losing Control In December 2006 Shell agreed to surrender control of Sakhalin II. By April 2007 Gazprom owned 50 per cent plus one share. Yet within two years Shell was not retreating from Russia. It was signing twenty-year gas agreements with Gazprom, discussing Sakhalin III, exploring Yamal LNG opportunities and establishing a working group to pursue additional Sakhalin resources. Shell’s 2009 Annual Report went further still: Russia had become a new corporate “heartland.” The documents establish the expansion of the relationship. They do not contain a single internal memorandum explaining why Shell chose that course. But Shell’s public statements, Gazprom’s records and the commercial structure make the strategic calculation unusually visible.

Archive reference: SLF-2007-075
Collection: The Sakhalin Papers
Principal authenticated records: Royal Dutch Shell plc Annual Report and Form 20-F 2009; Shell SEC filings; Gazprom corporate releases of 8 April and 18 September 2009
Contemporaneous reporting: Reuters, Bloomberg, Dow Jones/Wall Street Journal, UPI, AFP and The Times
Judicial context: Export Credits Guarantee Department v Friends of the Earth [2008] EWHC 638 (Admin)
Evidence standard: The agreements, meetings, ownership interests and Shell’s description of Russia as a new “heartland” are treated as established documentary facts. Contemporary descriptions of Shell having been forced or pressured to surrender control remain attributed to journalists and other observers. No public court judgment identified here determined that Gazprom’s acquisition resulted from an unlawful bargain. Explanations of Shell’s strategic motives are commentary unless explicitly attributed to Shell.

Introduction

The obvious assumption after the Sakhalin confrontation would have been retreat.

Shell had entered the crisis controlling 55 per cent of Sakhalin Energy.

It emerged with 27.5 per cent.

Gazprom held 50 per cent plus one share.

Approximately 402 million barrels of oil equivalent of proved reserves attributable to Shell shareholders had disappeared from Shell’s economic position.

The Russian state-controlled gas company was now in charge.

And yet the documentary record shows something striking.

Shell did not respond by keeping Gazprom at arm’s length.

It did the opposite.

Within months of Russia’s first LNG cargo leaving Sakhalin, Shell and Gazprom were discussing new projects.

Within weeks they signed agreements lasting until 2028.

By September they were considering expansion elsewhere around Sakhalin.

Yamal was on the table.

Sakhalin III was being discussed.

And Shell itself was describing Russia as a new strategic heartland.

The question is therefore not simply:

What did Shell lose at Sakhalin II?

It is also:

Why did Shell decide that Gazprom remained a partner it wanted? 1. 18 February 2009: Shell immediately looks beyond Sakhalin II

The starting point is the inauguration of Russia’s first LNG plant on 18 February 2009.

That same day Reuters interviewed Shell chief executive Jeroen van der Veer.

His comments are important because they came at the symbolic moment when the project Shell had once controlled was entering commercial LNG operation under Gazprom control.

Van der Veer said Shell intended to discuss further energy projects with Gazprom in Russia’s Far East.

Gazprom deputy chief executive Alexander Medvedev said Shell, Mitsui and Mitsubishi were also being considered in connection with potential LNG development on the Yamal Peninsula.

Van der Veer placed the relationship in the wider context of Shell’s long experience of working with state-controlled national oil companies.

Working with state companies, he said, was normal in Shell’s experience. Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com

That was not the language of corporate withdrawal.

It was the language of continued access.

2. Less than two months later came a twenty-year agreement

On 8 April 2009 Alexey Miller and Jeroen van der Veer met at Gazprom headquarters in Moscow.

Gazprom’s official record says they announced a package of LNG and pipeline-gas agreements.

Shell Eastern Trading and Gazprom Global LNG would each purchase LNG from Sakhalin Energy.

Deliveries were to begin in 2009 and continue until:

2028.

At plateau, each company was to purchase approximately:

one million tonnes of LNG a year.

The transaction also included a twenty-year pipeline-gas arrangement under which an equivalent volume of gas would be delivered to Shell in Europe. Gazprom

This was not merely Shell retaining the shares it had been left with.

It was the creation of a new long-term commercial relationship after the ownership confrontation.

3. Sakhalin LNG was being connected to Shell’s global gas portfolio

The April transaction was geographically much broader than Sakhalin Island.

Gazprom affiliates were to take capacity that Shell held at Sempra’s Energia Costa Azul LNG import terminal in Baja California, together with associated pipeline capacity into Southern California.

Gazprom’s own explanation was that the arrangement would help it sell Sakhalin LNG into the United States and other Pacific markets.

For Shell, the linked pipeline-gas agreement strengthened the flexibility of its European supply portfolio.

A cargo produced in Russia’s Far East had therefore become part of a commercial arrangement spanning:

Russia;

Japan and the Pacific LNG market;

Mexico;

California;

and European pipeline gas.

The relationship was becoming international rather than merely Russian. Gazprom

4. Van der Veer explicitly called for further expansion

Gazprom’s authenticated release records Van der Veer describing the April contracts as an important milestone.

More significantly, he said Shell looked forward to expanding its relationship with Gazprom in gas and LNG activities:

“both in Russia and internationally.”

Miller and Van der Veer also discussed further LNG cooperation inside Russia. Gazprom

The wording matters.

The Shell-Gazprom relationship was no longer being confined to managing the consequences of Sakhalin II.

Both companies were publicly discussing what came next.

5. Sakhalin III appeared almost immediately

Two days later, AFP reported another development.

Gazprom official Stanislav Tsigankov described Shell as a strong potential partner for Sakhalin III.

According to the contemporary report, Shell had “very good chances” of participating once the relevant licence arrangements were in place.

The same report noted the obvious historical tension: cooperation between Shell and Gazprom had deteriorated severely during the Sakhalin II ownership confrontation.

Yet Gazprom was now publicly contemplating Shell’s involvement in another major Far Eastern resource project. Dawn

That is an extraordinary turnaround if the story is reduced to the proposition that Shell had simply been driven out of Russia.

It had not.

Shell had lost control of one project.

It was seeking access to others.

6. Peter Voser confirmed that Shell was looking beyond Sakhalin II

On 29 April 2009, then chief financial officer Peter Voser told analysts that Shell and Gazprom were examining further opportunities around Sakhalin.

Contemporaneous Bloomberg reporting quoted Voser saying the partners intended to look for additional opportunities in the Sakhalin area.

The report again mentioned Gazprom’s consideration of Shell as a potential Sakhalin III participant. Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com

Voser would become Shell chief executive in July.

The strategic direction therefore did not disappear with Jeroen van der Veer’s retirement.

It continued under his successor.

7. June: Gazprom called Sakhalin a model for Yamal

The relationship broadened again in June.

At the St Petersburg International Economic Forum, Alexey Miller met Van der Veer.

A contemporaneous account of the Gazprom statement records Miller describing the Sakhalin II partnership as an example of mutually beneficial cooperation.

He then went further.

The experience gained at Sakhalin II, Miller said, could provide a basis for further LNG cooperation on the:

Yamal Peninsula.

That was strategically significant.

Yamal was not an incremental addition to Sakhalin II.

It represented one of Russia’s enormous future gas provinces in the Arctic.

Gazprom was therefore pointing to Sakhalin II — including Shell’s technology and LNG experience — as a possible template for a much larger future relationship. Oreanda News

8. September: the new Shell chief executive meets Miller

Peter Voser became chief executive of Royal Dutch Shell on 1 July 2009.

On 18 September, little more than two months into the job, he met Alexey Miller at the Sochi investment forum.

This time the record is particularly clear because Gazprom’s original corporate release remains available.

The companies reviewed Sakhalin II.

They noted that oil and LNG production was running ahead of the original 2009 projection.

Then the discussion moved beyond the existing project. Gazprom

9. The 2007 agreement contained a route to more Sakhalin development

Gazprom’s September statement referred to an Area of Mutual Interest Agreement dating from 2007.

That agreement had been signed alongside the restructuring through which Gazprom obtained control of Sakhalin Energy.

By September 2009, Miller and Voser were discussing the possibility of expanding activity elsewhere on the Sakhalin shelf under that framework.

They agreed to establish a working group to examine issues associated with development of Sakhalin fields. Gazprom

Contemporaneous Dow Jones reporting said the cooperation could extend to the Kirinsky block, which Gazprom held within the Sakhalin III area. Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com

Two years after losing control of Sakhalin II, Shell was therefore discussing how to participate in resources beyond it.

10. Gazprom was building its own Sakhalin III position at the same time

The context is important.

On 2 July 2009 Gazprom announced the start of exploration drilling at the Kirinskoye field within Sakhalin III.

Gazprom described the development as part of Russia’s Eastern Gas Program and said the field would help supply the Sakhalin–Khabarovsk–Vladivostok gas system.

At that stage Gazprom said Kirinskoye contained tens of billions of cubic metres of gas and millions of tonnes of condensate.

It was not simply an extension of Sakhalin II.

It belonged to the next phase of Russia’s Far Eastern gas development. Gazprom

For Shell, access to such acreage would mean that the Gazprom relationship could become a route back into major Russian resource growth.

11. UPI described the September talks as expansion, not damage control

Three days after the Miller-Voser meeting, UPI reported that the companies were discussing LNG development and additional Sakhalin resources.

The report recalled the twenty-year April agreement and noted that Sakhalin II production was exceeding initial expectations.

Most importantly, it recorded the decision to move forward with a working group concerned with further Sakhalin development. UPI

The historical sequence is therefore consistent across Gazprom’s own record and independent contemporary reporting.

February:

talk of more projects.

April:

twenty-year commercial agreements.

April:

Sakhalin III discussed.

June:

Yamal cooperation raised.

September:

formal working group for additional Sakhalin opportunities.

That is not accidental continuity.

It is an expanding relationship.

12. Then came Yamal

Less than a week after the September Sakhalin meeting, Vladimir Putin gathered executives from major international energy companies to discuss development of the Yamal Peninsula.

Contemporaneous reporting said Peter Voser indicated Shell was prepared to undertake a feasibility study concerning an LNG plant at Yamal.

The wider significance was obvious to journalists at the time.

Russia possessed vast Arctic resources.

Gazprom possessed privileged access to them.

But international companies possessed capital, project-management capacity and specialist technologies that Russia could use. Royal Dutch Shell Group .com

Shell possessed one capability of particular value:

decades of LNG experience.

Sakhalin II had just demonstrated it on Russian territory.

13. Shell’s annual report gave the strategy a name

The most revealing Shell document came later.

Royal Dutch Shell’s Annual Report and Form 20-F for 2009 was filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on 16 March 2010. SEC

In its Upstream strategy section, Shell listed its established production “heartlands” — countries such as Australia, Canada, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, the UK and the United States.

Then it added:

“Russia represents a new heartland”

because Sakhalin II had come on stream in 2009. Shell Plc

The phrase is difficult to reconcile with any notion that Shell regarded the 2006–07 confrontation as grounds for abandoning Russia.

Quite the reverse.

Russia had moved into Shell’s strategic core.

14. The same annual report contained an extraordinary warning

The same document also provides an important counterweight.

Shell’s risk section warned investors that operating internationally exposed it to political and legal instability.

Among the possibilities Shell specifically identified were:

forced divestment of assets;

expropriation;

cancellation of contractual rights;

rewriting of leases;

changing environmental regulation;

and governmental action affecting hydrocarbon entitlements.

Shell also warned generally about the risk of renegotiation of agreements involving governmental entities. Shell Plc

This was not written specifically about Russia.

It was Shell’s global risk disclosure.

That distinction must be maintained.

But historically the juxtaposition is striking.

The same annual report that called Russia a new heartland warned shareholders that political developments could produce precisely the kinds of ownership and contractual disruptions that international oil companies fear.

15. Sakhalin II also taught Shell the value of having the state company inside the project

Here we move from documented fact to interpretation.

No internal Shell memorandum located for this instalment says:

We lost control because Gazprom was outside the project, therefore our future Russian strategy must depend upon partnering Gazprom.

That conclusion should not be presented as a discovered corporate instruction.

But contemporary observers made a closely related point.

When Shell and Gazprom eventually formalised broader cooperation in 2010, analysts noted that foreign energy companies operating with Gazprom appeared to have better prospects in Russia than those attempting to develop strategic resources independently.

That assessment cannot be converted into Shell’s private reasoning.

But it fits the public behaviour visible throughout 2009. The Guardian

Shell did not attempt to restore its old dominant position.

It attempted to make the new relationship work.

16. The economics made withdrawal unattractive

Another part of the explanation requires no speculation.

Sakhalin II was producing.

Its LNG trains had ramped up rapidly.

Its oil and gas production was substantial.

Its LNG was sold into premium Asian markets.

Shell still owned 27.5 per cent.

It retained technical involvement.

And through the April agreements Shell was acquiring long-term LNG volumes for its global trading portfolio.

Walking away would therefore have meant abandoning a valuable producing position as well as possible access to future Russian resources.

The commercial incentive to remain engaged was substantial.

17. Gazprom also needed things Shell possessed

The relationship was not one-sided.

Gazprom possessed reserves and political access.

Shell possessed technologies, LNG operating experience, international trading capability and participation in infrastructure outside Russia.

The April 2009 transaction illustrates this exchange particularly well.

Gazprom gained access to Shell-linked terminal and pipeline capacity connected with the North American market.

Shell gained long-term LNG and pipeline-gas portfolio flexibility.

Gazprom could learn from an experienced international LNG operator.

Shell could retain a route into Russia’s resource base. Gazprom

Their interests were not identical.

They were complementary.

18. The High Court record remains a useful restraint on hindsight

The English High Court judgment delivered the previous year remains relevant because it fixes an independent point in the chronology.

Mr Justice Mitting recorded that Sakhalin II had originally been developed by a consortium in which Shell held the majority stake and that Gazprom had subsequently assumed a controlling interest.

He also recorded the proposed approximately $650 million of British export-credit support and the potentially serious environmental consequences associated with the project.

The case concerned disclosure of government environmental information.

It did not adjudicate why Gazprom obtained control.

It did not find that Russia had coerced Shell.

It did not rule that the ownership transfer was unlawful.

And it did not examine Shell’s later decision to deepen cooperation with Gazprom. vLex

That legal boundary remains important.

The chronology is powerful enough without converting interpretation into judgment.

19. What can safely be said about Shell’s strategy?

The public evidence permits several conclusions.

Shell considered Russia strategically important after losing control of Sakhalin II.

Shell actively pursued further cooperation with Gazprom.

Shell entered long-duration commercial arrangements with Gazprom and Sakhalin Energy.

Shell examined additional Sakhalin opportunities.

Gazprom publicly considered Shell for Sakhalin III.

The companies discussed Yamal LNG.

Shell’s own annual report called Russia a new heartland.

Those propositions are established.

What cannot be stated as documented internal fact is the precise reasoning process inside Shell’s executive committee or board.

No document examined for this instalment records a formal calculation such as:

Accept Gazprom dominance in exchange for future Russian access.

That may be an attractive interpretation.

It remains an interpretation.

Documentary Findings Established

On 18 February 2009 Jeroen van der Veer told Reuters that Shell intended to discuss further Russian projects with Gazprom after the start-up of Sakhalin II LNG. Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com

On 8 April 2009 Gazprom and Shell announced agreements under which Shell Eastern Trading and Gazprom Global LNG would each purchase approximately one million tonnes of Sakhalin LNG annually at plateau.

The supply arrangements were scheduled to continue until 2028.

The package also contained a twenty-year pipeline-gas arrangement benefiting Shell’s European supply portfolio and arrangements involving North American LNG import capacity. Gazprom

Gazprom subsequently identified Shell as a potential participant in Sakhalin III. Dawn

Peter Voser publicly confirmed in April that Shell and Gazprom were examining additional opportunities around Sakhalin. Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com

In June 2009 Alexey Miller publicly suggested Sakhalin II experience could support future Shell-Gazprom cooperation in LNG development on Yamal. Oreanda News

On 18 September 2009 Miller and Voser agreed to establish a working group to study further Sakhalin field development under the existing Area of Mutual Interest framework. Gazprom

Contemporary reporting identified the Gazprom-controlled Kirinsky block as one possible area of cooperation. Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com

Shell’s 2009 Annual Report described Russia as a new upstream “heartland” following Sakhalin II start-up. Shell Plc

Established risk disclosure

Shell’s same annual report warned generally that political and regulatory developments in countries where it operated could lead to forced divestment, expropriation, cancellation of contractual rights and other adverse changes.

That disclosure was global and was not specifically labelled as a description of Russia. Shell Plc

Established judicial context

The High Court recorded the transition from Shell majority control to Gazprom control and the substantial environmental issues associated with Sakhalin II.

The judgment concerned environmental-information disclosure.

It did not determine the political motive for Gazprom’s acquisition. vLex

Not established

It is not established that Shell’s board formally adopted a policy of accepting Gazprom control in return for access to new Russian projects.

It is not established that Shell was promised Sakhalin III or Yamal participation as consideration for surrendering control of Sakhalin II.

It is not established that the Area of Mutual Interest Agreement guaranteed Shell participation in any specific future field.

It is not established that the environmental enforcement campaign of 2006 was legally improper.

It is not established that the later Shell-Gazprom cooperation erased, resolved or vindicated the environmental controversies that preceded the ownership restructuring.

Commentary

There is a temptation to tell the Sakhalin story as though December 2006 were the ending.

Shell lost control.

Gazprom won.

The Kremlin prevailed.

Curtain.

The documents show something considerably more complicated.

For Shell, Sakhalin II did not become a reason to abandon Russia.

It became the foundation of a different Russian strategy.

The old model had been:

Shell controls the project.

The emerging model was:

Gazprom controls access to strategic Russian resources; Shell brings technology, LNG expertise, international markets and capital; both sides look for projects where those interests overlap.

Whether Shell liked the circumstances that produced that new model is a different question.

Its behaviour is less ambiguous.

Shell stayed.

Shell signed twenty-year contracts.

Shell discussed Sakhalin III.

Shell discussed Yamal.

Shell created working groups with Gazprom.

And Shell called Russia a new heartland.

There is also a deeper irony.

Shell’s own annual report warned investors about political risks including forced divestment and contractual renegotiation.

Those risks belonged to the generic vocabulary of international petroleum investment.

But Shell had just lived through a transaction in Russia in which its controlling position had been cut in half during an extraordinary period of regulatory, environmental and political pressure.

Yet rather than mark Russia as commercially untouchable, Shell elevated it into the strategic heartlands of the company.

That suggests the scale of the prize.

Russia possessed resources international oil companies could not reproduce elsewhere.

Gazprom possessed access Shell could not independently obtain.

Shell possessed technology and global LNG capabilities Gazprom wanted.

Sakhalin II had exposed the imbalance of political power between them.

It had not eliminated their commercial interdependence.

And by late 2009 both companies were already building upon it.

The confrontation had produced not divorce, but a new marriage contract.

Source Record

Royal Dutch Shell plc’s Annual Report and Form 20-F 2009 is the principal authenticated Shell source. It describes Russia as a new upstream “heartland” following the start-up of Sakhalin II and contains Shell’s contemporaneous global disclosures concerning political, contractual and forced-divestment risks. Shell Plc

Shell-hosted Annual Report and Form 20-F 2009

The SEC filing index confirms Royal Dutch Shell’s 2009 Form 20-F was filed on 16 March 2010. SEC

US SEC — Royal Dutch Shell plc Form 20-F for 2009

Gazprom’s authenticated 8 April 2009 corporate release records the Shell and Gazprom LNG purchases, the 2028 contractual horizon, the European pipeline-gas agreement, the North American terminal arrangements and the stated intention to expand cooperation. Gazprom

Gazprom — Gazprom and Royal Dutch Shell sign LNG and natural gas contracts, 8 April 2009

Gazprom’s authenticated 18 September 2009 release records the Miller-Voser meeting, successful Sakhalin II ramp-up, the 2007 Area of Mutual Interest Agreement and creation of a working group for further Sakhalin development. Gazprom

Gazprom — Working meeting between Alexey Miller and Peter Voser, 18 September 2009

Reuters’ contemporaneous 18 February 2009 interview recorded Van der Veer’s intention to pursue further cooperation with Gazprom following Sakhalin II start-up. Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com

Bloomberg reporting of 29 April 2009 recorded Peter Voser saying Shell and Gazprom were examining further opportunities around Sakhalin. Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com

UPI’s 21 September 2009 report independently recorded the decision to pursue a working group for further Sakhalin development. UPI

The principal judicial source remains Export Credits Guarantee Department v Friends of the Earth [2008] EWHC 638 (Admin), judgment of Mr Justice Mitting dated 17 March 2008. vLex

High Court — ECGD v Friends of the Earth [2008] EWHC 638 (Admin)

Archive disclaimer: Corporate statements about cooperation and future projects establish what Shell and Gazprom publicly said and did. They do not establish undisclosed motives, private assurances or any political quid pro quo. Contemporary descriptions of the 2006–07 ownership restructuring as forced or coercive remain attributed descriptions rather than judicial findings.

Site-wide disclaimer applies.

Next instalment SLF-2007-076 — The Sakhalin Papers LXVI: “Strategic Global Cooperation” — Four Years After the Kremlin Crisis, Shell Signs a Worldwide Pact with Gazprom

The relationship developing through 2009 did not stop at Sakhalin.

On 30 November 2010, Peter Voser and Alexey Miller signed something much more ambitious:

a Protocol on Strategic Global Cooperation.

Shell’s own announcement said the companies would examine joint oil and gas opportunities in western Siberia and Russia’s Far East.

Gazprom could participate in Shell upstream projects outside Russia.

The cooperation would extend into downstream markets in Russia and Europe.

Peter Voser said the agreement demonstrated the “strong partnership” the companies had built. PR Newswire

Contemporary reporting immediately noticed the irony: less than four years after Shell had lost control of Sakhalin II, it was signing a global partnership with the company that had taken control. The Guardian

The next file will examine how a bruising Russian ownership confrontation became, in Shell’s own language, a strategic global partnership — and what each side expected to obtain from the other.

THE SHELL LEAKS FILES: 2 OCTOBER 2026 was first posted on October 2, 2026 at 8:15 pm.
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This article Iran’s teachers movement perseveres against all odds was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

Sunlight filtered through the trees separating the headquarters of the Plan and Budget Organization in Tehran as 300 teachers gathered outside to protest on Sept. 6. Their demands were simple: salaries that keep pace with inflation, fair pay scales and improved health and welfare services.

They knew they were taking an enormous risk. 

For years, educators across Iran have taken to the streets to demand fair wages, better working conditions, the release of detained teachers, the constitutionally guaranteed rights to free education for all children and to peaceful assembly and association. For years, they have faced arrests, enforced disappearances, prosecutions on national security charges, dismissals, imprisonment and solitary confinement. 

Teachers and teachers’ union activists played a prominent role in the January 2026 uprising, when people across the country called for freedom and an end to the Islamic Republic system of government. In response, they were heavily targeted. By July, at least 60 had been arrested, prosecuted or imprisoned. At least 14 have been killed. Still, against all odds, Iranian teachers have kept their movement alive.

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The Iranian teachers’ movement is not organized through a single union. Local and provincial teachers’ associations operate across the country, while an umbrella network called the Coordinating Council of Iranian Teachers’ Trade Associations, or CCITTA, links many of them. The structure allows teachers to organize locally while coordinating actions across the country.

Some of these actions, like protests and public statements, are impossible to miss. Others are less confrontational and more relational: debating movement priorities, supporting imprisoned colleagues and their families, building solidarity with other social movements, or simply getting together to hike or read or watch a film. Together, they knit together a movement that has proven resilient against virtually every form of repression, from internet shutdowns to detentions and killings, while continuing to press its demands.

‘A continuation of my responsibility as a teacher’

Mohammad Habibi became a teacher in 2003. For him, it was never just a job; it felt like a social responsibility. But he soon realized that quality education for students could not be fully achieved without protecting teachers’ rights. So he joined the Iranian Teachers’ Trade Association and later took on several roles within the CCITTA. He is currently its spokesperson. 

“My trade union activism wasn’t separate from teaching,” he said. “I saw it as a continuation of my responsibility as a teacher. Teachers have a duty that goes beyond teaching textbooks. They must defend the right to education, student dignity, educational justice and freedom of thought.”

Like Habibi, the nine teachers interviewed for this story described demands that encompass both their own rights and those of their students. They want salaries and pensions that reflect the real cost of living, job security, meaningful participation in education policy, freedom of expression and association, and the release of their imprisoned colleagues.

But they’re also calling for free, high-quality and equitable public education for all children, regardless of ethnicity or gender, while opposing the privatization and commercialization of education.

For Esmaeil Abdi, the former general secretary of the Tehran Teachers’ Trade Association, who spent nearly nine years in prison for his activism, the fight against privatization is inseparable from the fight for equality. “If education becomes a commodity whose quality depends on a family’s economic ability, social inequality is reproduced from one generation to the next,” he said.

Teachers also advocate for every child’s right to receive education in their mother tongue alongside Persian, arguing that Iran’s linguistic and cultural diversity should be reflected in its schools.

Over the years, the movement has won concessions on some of these demands, like pension increases, the implementation of the Teacher Ranking Law (specifying pay tiers) and corresponding salary increases, and a voice in the management of their retirement fund. However, even when policies change, implementation may be incomplete. 

“But the significance of this experience lies not only in the material results of these demands,” said Eskandar “Soran” Lotfi, a Kurdish teachers’ union activist and former CCITTA spokesperson. “It also shows that sustained and organized protests by teachers have succeeded in bringing issues that the government initially refused to accept into the sphere of public policymaking and decision-making.” 

Abdi shared a similar view: “Despite repression, the teachers’ movement has succeeded in keeping issues such as free public education, teachers’ rights and educational inequality at the center of public debate.”

While maintaining its organizational independence, the movement has built solidarity with workers, students and women’s rights activists. This has happened despite what Laeya Mohammadi, a teacher activist using a pseudonym for fear of reprisal, describes as the “government’s attempts to divide teachers from other movements, including by claiming teachers hold a higher social status than [other groups], like workers.” 

Much as they would later take part in the January 2026 protests, teachers participated in the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom uprising, in which hundreds of thousands protested the repressive government after the morality police killed 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. Four years later, that struggle still shapes the aspirations of teachers like Habibi, who hopes for a future in which female teachers and students are no longer compelled to obey the country’s veiling law and instead have full autonomy over choices as personal as what they wear.

Previous Coverage

‘Only democracy can solve this problem’ — a conversation with Iranian Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi

Teachers’ broader social commitments have also surfaced when their students are at risk. Beginning in late 2022, girls across Iran began reporting illnesses after suspected poisonings at schools, with cases eventually spreading across many cities and provinces. As the incidents continued amid conflicting official explanations and growing concern over students’ safety, the CCITTA called nationwide protests in March 2023. Teachers and parents demonstrated across the country. In some locations, security forces teargassed and arrested protesters.

Shadi Taban, a teacher who spoke under a pseudonym, was among those who participated. For her, the issue reflected a principle reaching well beyond teachers’ own working conditions.

“Our red line is the students,” she said.

That red line was crossed during the January 2026 uprisings when the government killed more than 200 schoolchildren. Teachers took it upon themselves to protest their students’ deaths and honor their memories through the “Empty Desks” campaign. Despite widespread internet shutdowns and the difficulty of accessing information, Iranian teachers were able to collect and share the names, photographs and stories of around 240 children who had lost their lives. 

Abdi believes that this record-building could one day help establish truth, accountability and redress for the state-committed abuses. “We see this as an important part of a future process of transitional justice,” he said. 

After the U.S. military struck a school in Minab in February 2026, killing 150 people, including 120 children, teachers launched another documentation campaign. Titled “Abandoned Backpacks,” it symbolized the children who never returned to school. 

But the significance of the campaigns transcends symbolism. “For us, these were also efforts aimed at seeking justice, preserving collective memory and defending children’s right to life and education,” Lotfi said. 

Social organizing and consensus-building 

One of the movement’s most fundamental structural challenges is that independent trade unions lack legal recognition in Iran. According to Lotfi, this creates obstacles before organizing even begins. Teachers cannot openly and formally recruit members or build a stable financial structure through membership dues to support research, education and organizing. Meetings and assemblies often occur only in private spaces.

The movement is therefore forced into a permanent contradiction: Much of its organizational work must happen informally, even as its demands are voiced publicly.

When those demands do become public, their spread encounters another barrier.

Pirouz Nami, who established the Teachers’ Trade Association of Khuzestan in 2012, said state-affiliated media often suppress teachers’ actual demands while portraying their activism as the product of foreign manipulation or hostile forces. “Within Iran, if any newspaper attempts to report the truth, it faces closure or prosecution,” Mohammadi explained. International coverage, Nami added, can create a different problem: sporadic attention that captures individual protests or arrests but misses the movement’s longer-term structures, relationships and organizing work.

In the face of such expansive challenges, teachers have developed an equally expansive repertoire of strategies. But those strategies remain peaceful, despite the repression and violence they are met with.  

“One cannot seek freedom, justice and human dignity through methods that violate those very values,” said Habibi, who has himself been arrested and beaten for protesting.

“Teachers have a duty that goes beyond teaching textbooks,” says Mohammad Habibi, teacher and Coordinating Council of Iranian Teachers’ Trade Associations spokesperson. (Education International)

Teachers organize strikes, demonstrations, sit-ins and letter-writing campaigns; issue joint statements; document rights violations; and use social media to raise public awareness. One teacher, who requested anonymity for safety reasons, recalled more theatrical actions he had participated in. In one, teachers collectively burned payslips; in another, they built a coffin for the education system and carried it through the streets in a mock funeral procession.

The decision to take action at all is one that’s shaped collectively before anyone takes to the streets.

Several teachers described decision-making within the CCITTA as a democratic process built around discussion, consensus and majority voting. Lotfi said consensus is woven into organizing from the earliest stage. Before a demand becomes a slogan, teachers discuss, analyze and write about it. Workshops and longer discussion sessions may follow, with supporters and opponents debating the idea.

“This transforms a demand from a simple slogan into an issue that teachers … can collectively defend,” Lotfi said.

Opposition to the privatization and commodification of education, for example, was not always universally shared. But as Iran’s once all-public education system gradually shifted toward greater private-sector involvement, a small group of teacher activists began arguing that privatization was undermining the constitutional guarantee of free public education. They discussed the consequences of this trend through written materials, meetings and debate. Over time, the idea gained broader support. Today, opposition to privatization, as well as advocacy for free, public and equitable education, have become some of the movement’s central priorities. In fact, according to Habibi, “It is because of teachers’ protests that the privatization of public education has proceeded much more slowly than successive governments would have liked.” 

Alongside the demonstrations and strikes visible to the public and the state, teachers continually work to strengthen relationships within the movement. “Even activities that don’t seem directly related to our demands form a part of social organizing,” Lotfi said. Teachers meet online and in person. They organize hiking groups, walking groups, cultural programs and social gatherings. That work, Abdi said, helps build a movement that “doesn’t depend on one individual and preserves and reproduces its capacity to act, even under pressure.”

The trust created through those relationships can become crucial when repression strikes.

Solidarity with detained teachers

In May 2022, Lotfi was arrested when returning to his hometown, Marivan, ahead of a planned Teachers’ Day protest there.

“My tenant had informed my family beforehand about what was happening,” he recalled. “The security forces had surrounded my home. But I went back anyway because I had spent years working to create joint action, and didn’t want to miss that moment. I was arrested almost immediately after entering the city.”

State television later portrayed him negatively, including allegations that he had ties to “hostile countries,” which he says are unfounded. Authorities pointed to a friendly meeting between Lotfi and two French teacher trade unionists as evidence of those supposed connections.

His detention activated the networks he had spent years building.

Dozens of teachers demonstrated outside education offices and other government institutions. Teachers circulated statements and written appeals demanding his release. When Lotfi began a hunger strike to protest his detention and pressure to confess to ties with the French citizens, dozens of teachers began solidarity hunger strikes of their own. He was finally released on bail in August 2022, but was rearrested in October, during the Woman, Life, Freedom protests. 

The wave of support he received was not unique to him.

Several teachers described a similar response whenever a colleague is detained or imprisoned: Associations issue public statements, raise awareness through social media and news outlets, and organize gatherings outside education offices and courthouses to pressure authorities for their colleagues’ release. Teachers also provide financial and emotional assistance to detainees’ families and try to secure legal support. The movement does not act alone. Habibi said volunteer lawyers, journalists and civil society activists have repeatedly stood alongside teachers, despite the consequences that solidarity can carry.

At the same time, teachers aligned with state authorities participate in what Lotfi described as mechanisms of control and repression. “They might spread rumors about activists, like portraying them as affiliated with foreign governments,” he said. The result can be fear and mistrust, discouraging even sympathetic teachers from publicly supporting detained colleagues.

For detained teachers, repression spills into the lives of their loved ones, who are left to absorb its emotional and material costs.

A teacher who requested anonymity because he is out on bail pending trial, described his wife being arrested alongside him this past spring, amid a broader crackdown on teachers’ union activists.

“Both my wife and I were beaten,” he said. “They blindfolded and handcuffed me and put me in a vehicle.”

During the two months he spent in detention, he said, a judicial officer threatened to reopen what he called “Glass Room No. 100.” The teacher described it as a place where protesters were raped with glass bottles — a form of sexual torture Amnesty International has independently documented against other detainees in Iran.

Like the other teachers interviewed, Nami endured years of threatening phone calls, surveillance at work and in the classroom, pay cuts, arrests, torture, solitary confinement and ultimately job dismissal. Watching his family endure the consequences alongside him, he said, doubled the weight. During Nami’s detentions, his wife had to manage the household and care for their eldest son, who has a severe physical disability, entirely on her own, while also living with rheumatism and diabetes.

Mohammadi testified about her detention experience to the women’s committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran. She told them that when the Ministry of Intelligence summoned her, she went without informing her family. Security agents nevertheless tracked her children through her phone, causing them severe distress. After her arrest, authorities threatened her family against reporting her imprisonment to the media. 

“But on a social level, going to prison under this regime no longer carries a social stigma,” she said. “On the contrary, people wear it as a badge of honor, proud to have stood up against the state.”

Building strength under wartime conditions

Challenges intensify during internet shutdowns and periods of war, like Iran is experiencing now. Habibi said teachers struggle to communicate, share information and coordinate activities; even maintaining contact with the families of imprisoned colleagues becomes difficult.

The danger extends to communication devices themselves. Lotfi said authorities sometimes seize activists’ phones and computers during arrests and searches and later use information stored on them in judicial proceedings, making secure communication a constant concern.

Even under these conditions, public action has not disappeared entirely. 

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The Sept. 6 protest was one of the movement’s most recent public demonstrations, unfolding amid a broader wave of protests across the country that included actions by railway workers, nurses, unemployed youth and retirees over grievances like unpaid wages and the mishandling of pension funds.

But wartime conditions, intense repression and the imprisonment of many active organizers have forced teachers to retreat from frequent street demonstrations.

“We are trying to preserve our relationships and collective spirit through lower-risk activities happening across the country, such as group walks, hiking trips, film screenings, book discussions, and educational and cultural gatherings,” Habibi said. 

One such lower-risk activity is a screening of “When We Fight” (a documentary about the 2019 Los Angeles teachers’ strike), planned for World Teachers’ Day on Oct. 5, possibly followed by a virtual conversation between Iranian teachers and American educators featured in the film about organizing strategies and shared experiences.

The CCITTA continues to provide financial support to imprisoned teachers, who currently number 15 by Habibi’s count, although resources have been strained by the uptick in arrests since January 2026 and payments have become smaller. The fund cannot take international donations, due to the government’s sensitivity to connections outside the country, so it is financed by voluntary donations from teachers, who risk having their bank accounts frozen in retaliation. “Still, each time this happens, a new account is created, and teachers begin making donations again,” Habibi said.

The CCITTA is also continuing its Empty Desks project. And as schools reopen, teachers, including Taban, are campaigning for the reinstatement of colleagues who were dismissed for their protest activity. In late September, teachers, parents and civil society activists launched a petition demanding the reinstatement of all dismissed teachers, rallying in particular around Kurdish teacher-activists Majid Karimi and Ghias Nemati. The two had briefly returned to their classrooms after a higher administrative body overturned earlier decisions barring them from service, only for education authorities to impose new penalties that again removed them from teaching. 

“Although our methods might change because of the circumstances, our commitment to defending teachers’ rights, public education and civil society remains unchanged,” Habibi said.

This article Iran’s teachers movement perseveres against all odds was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

• Native tribes denied greater say in water decisions with Newsom veto
• Newsom Vetoes Sacred Sites and Tribal Water Bills Despite Overwhelming Votes
• Tribal advocates say Newsom apologized for state history, then vetoed their bills
• Governor Newsom Ignores Water-Sector Consensus and Fails to Make Water Affordable in California 

Newsom’s final legislative session has ended with broken promises, and sweeping vetoes of critical legislation. On September 30th, Governor Newsom vetoed AB 2218, Water policy: California Native American tribes. The bill, authored by Assemblymember Ash Kalra and co-sponsored by the Shingle Springs Band of Miwok and the Karuk Tribe, passed both chambers of the California Legislature with unanimous support: 28-0 in the Senate and 56-0 in the Assembly. Despite Newsom’s work with tribes on stewardship and landback initiatives, this decision highlights the State’s inability to translate words into actionable change.

In his veto message, Governor Newsom reiterated his administration’s recognition of “the historical harms perpetrated against Native peoples and tribal governments in California.” He attempts to rationalize this veto and continuing trend of leaving tribes out of important water decisions, arguing that passing this bill would undermine water policies addressing climate change, create duplicate work, and potentially disrupt important regulations, policies, permits, and grant criteria moving forward.

Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians Vice Chair Malissa Tayaba responded directly to this decision, stating, “Newsom’s veto of AB 2218 is a backhanded betrayal of California Tribes and a direct contradiction of his apology and promises of reconciliation. For nearly 200 years, California has made decisions about our waters without us, disregarding the tribes whose cultures, communities and lifeways depend on them. Newsom had instead aligned with ‘special water interests that profit from extractive and exploitive water management.’” 

The Los Angeles Times and Sacramento Bee reported on the veto, depicting the long history of exclusion in California, and the importance of AB 2218 in providing Tribes a greater role in decisions affecting California water resources. Karuk Tribe Chairman Russell “Buster” Attebery said tribes “need to be at the table when decisions are being made,” and the bill was an important step toward changing that. The article also highlights California’s troubled water history dating back to the Gold Rush, when Tribes were forcibly removed from their lands and left without meaningful rights to the water resources they depended on. 

In a continuing trend of vetoing important legislation, the Community Water Center’s bill, SB 1125: Water Rate Assistance Program, was another casualty of Governor Newsom’s September 30th legislative decisions. The groundbreaking legislation would have established a statewide Low-Income Water Rate Assistance Program, the first of its kind in the nation. Authored by Senator Caroline Menjivar, the bill would have addressed water affordability and helped ensure that families across California have access to safe and affordable water.

Read more about each bill and the Governor’s vetoes below:

• Native tribes denied greater say in water decisions with Newsom veto
• Newsom Vetoes Sacred Sites and Tribal Water Bills Despite Overwhelming Votes
• Tribal advocates say Newsom apologized for state history, then vetoed their bills
• Governor Newsom Ignores Water-Sector Consensus and Fails to Make Water Affordable in California 

Reabold Resources has announced its takeover offer for Union Jack Oil has lapsed.

At the today’s deadline, the bid was supported by holders of just over 13% of Union Jack share capital.

Reabold said in a statement this evening it had not received sufficient acceptances from Union Jack investors by 1pm.

Extract from Reabold Resources statement, issued at 5.15pm, 2 October 2026

The offer was conditional on receiving acceptances from holders of at least 75% of Union Jack’s existing share capital.

Reabold said that at 1pm today (2 October 2026), it had received acceptances from about 13.02%.

The statement said:

“As such, the Acceptance Condition has not been satisfied and the Offer has now lapsed”.

It added that the offr would have addressed challenges facing Union Jack and would have allowed shareholders to “participate in a better-capitalised platform with enhanced access to funding and a wider portfolio of assets”.

Reabold said it reserved the right to make a further offer if it were recommended by the Union Jack Board or a third party announced it intended to make an offer for Union Jack.

At the time of writing, Union Jack has not made a formal statement on the outcome of the takeover bid.

The offer, first made in June 2026, was backed by Union Jack’s then executive chairman, David Bramhill, and the company’s board. They had urged Union Jack shareholders to accept the offer.

But Mr Bramhill and two other directors were removed from the board on 24 August 2026 at a special meeting of shareholders.

They were replaced by Craig Howie and John Americanos, who opposed the Reabold takeover bid.

On 11 September 2026, in a circular to investors, the new Union Jack board recommended rejection of the offer. The board described the offer as “opportunistic” and said it “significantly undervalues Union Jack’s current project portfolio”.

Union Jack has the largest individual interest (40%) in the Wressle oil field in North Lincolnshire, PEDL180 and PEDL182.

It also has a 16.665% share in the West Newton oil and gas licence, PEDL183, in East Yorkshire and interests in PEDL5, PEDL209, PEDL241 and EXL294.

Last month, there were clashes between Union Jack and Reabold over West Newton, where there are plans for lower-volume fracking before the end of the year.

Union Jack said West Newton remained “an undeveloped gas and condensate discovery that has yet to establish sustained commercial production”. It also said “the outcome of the proposed stimulation” was not known.

Reabold Resources said it “strongly rejects” the suggestion that West Newton lacked “strategic merit”, It accused the new Union Jack board of “highly selective views” on the field.

BALTIMORE, MD — The Maryland Public Service Commission (PSC) selected yesterday the Chalk Point Storage Project (Prince George’s County, 400 MW) and Jade Meadow III Battery Storage (Garrett County, 40 MW) under the Round 1 solicitation of the Next Generation Energy Act (NGEA). A coalition of clean energy and environmental organizations thanks the Commission for its work throughout the Case 9866 process and welcomes the approvals as a step forward for Maryland’s grid but calls on the PSC to do more.

What yesterday’s decision means:

• Progress on reliability and affordability: The selected project(s) will add 440 MW of transmission-connected, 4-hour battery storage, helping stabilize supply and demand and insulate ratepayers from peak pricing.
• Local benefits: The Chalk Point Storage Project and Jade Meadow III Battery Project are expected to bring construction jobs, permanent maintenance positions, and steady tax revenue to Prince George’s County and Garrett County. 
• Next step is construction approval: The approved project(s) must still secure PSC construction approval, including additional public hearings on safety, siting, and environmental review, expected in late 2026 and into 2027.

The state’s grid — under mounting strain from PJM capacity constraints and rising demand — needs every cost-effective storage resource it can bring online. 

In response to yesterday’s decision, advocates released the following statements: 

“The proposals in this docket represent several years of state policymaking pertaining to grid reliability and a state storage program. 440 MW is a significant increase to our grid’s capacity. At a time when electricity affordability is a paramount concern for Marylanders, storage can reduce overall electricity system costs and can prevent rate increases by improving grid efficiency, maximizing low-cost renewable energy, and strengthening system reliability,” said Rebecca Rehr, Director of Climate Policy and Justice, Maryland League of Conservation Voters.

“Maryland should celebrate these first-round approvals, but we cannot stop at 440 megawatts when the state has set a 3,000-megawatt energy-storage goal by 2033 and sought 800 megawatts in this round alone,” said Brittany Baker, Maryland Director at Chesapeake Climate Action Network. “The Commission should build on this progress with an ambitious Round 2 that brings substantially more storage online, prioritizes responsible siting and community engagement, and gives Maryland households the reliable, affordable clean-energy grid they deserve.”

“While we commend the Commission approving these two projects for Energy Storage Capacity Credits, it missed a critical opportunity to deploy more clean capacity,” said Josh Tulkin, Sierra Club Maryland Chapter Director. “Maryland urgently needs to add more storage to the grid to combat rising electricity prices, improve reliability, and meet its climate targets. The approval of only two projects does not meet the urgency of this moment. The Commission should approve credits for more storage capacity in Round 2, including projects like the large, six-hour Oystercatcher project.”

As the PSC gears up for Round 2 solicitation, due to launch by January 1, 2027, advocates look forward to consideration of more energy storage projects that deliver the additional storage capacity Maryland needs to meet its reliability and climate goals.

# # #

Chesapeake Climate Action Network is the first grassroots organization dedicated exclusively to raising awareness about the impacts and solutions associated with global warming in the Chesapeake Bay region. Founded in 2002, CCAN has been at the center of the fight for clean energy and wise climate policy in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, DC.

Maryland LCV educates and activates people to take equitable and just political actions for clean water, healthy air, and climate-resilient communities.

Founded in 1892, the Sierra Club is America’s oldest and largest grassroots environmental organization. The Maryland Chapter has over 70,000 members and supporters, and the Sierra Club nationwide has approximately 800,000 members.

The post Maryland PSC Approves Two Battery Storage Projects; Coalition Urges Continued Progress Toward Grid Reliability Goals appeared first on Chesapeake Climate Action Network.

A coalition of environmental and consumer protection organizations filed a lawsuit today challenging the Trump administration’s final rule rolling back federal Corporate Average Fuel Economy, or CAFE, standards, a move that will make new vehicles less fuel efficient, increase gasoline consumption, and drive up costs for American drivers already facing high gas prices.

The lawsuit challenges the administration’s attempt to weaken longstanding fuel economy requirements that have helped reduce gasoline consumption and save drivers money at the pump. The rollback comes as families are already struggling with record-high gas prices, with transportation ranking as the second-largest household expense after housing, accounting for roughly 17% of average household spending.

The existing fuel economy standards would have saved 64 billion gallons of gas. Even before the current rise in gas prices, they were set to deliver $35 billion in savings to consumers over the lifetimes of the vehicles covered. Today’s final rule weakens those standards, allowing manufacturers to produce a fleet of vehicles in model year 2031 that are less efficient than the model year 2024 vehicle fleet that is already on our roads.

The administration’s own projections show that Americans will be forced to spend over $1,600 more on fuel over the life of these life-efficient vehicles, and NHTSA estimates this final rule will result in an increase of over 121 billion gallons of fuel consumption through 2050.

“With gas prices at historic highs, Trump picked the worst possible time to roll back federal mileage standards,” said David Pettit, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute. “Oil companies will profit from less efficient cars, but drivers will take a hit to their wallets and our kids will breathe dirtier air. We’ll all pay the price for more tailpipe pollutants spewing everywhere from playgrounds to wild places. We’re asking the courts to put a stop to this callous giveaway to Big Oil and Big Auto.”

“We’re taking the Trump administration to court for this reckless rollback that prioritizes Big Oil and automaker profits over American families,” said Katherine Garcia, director of Sierra Club’s Clean Transportation for All. “It is unlawful for Trump to turn back the clock on fuel-efficient cars forcing drivers to waste more money on gas and communities to breathe toxic air. The Sierra Club is proud to stand with our coalition partners in defending our right to cleaner, more affordable vehicles.”

“The Trump administration is steering us toward cars that burn more gas to travel the same miles, draining family budgets along the way,” said James Crowley, senior attorney at Conservation Law Foundation. “As the needle drops toward empty, more grocery and rent money goes into the tank, while more pollution fills the air we breathe. We’re taking this administration to court because families can’t afford to be steered backward.”

“Consumers need more fuel efficient choices when considering new cars, and they deserve vehicles that get more miles per gallon and miles per dollar,” said Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen. “Trump’s lawless push to roll back key safeguards on fuel economy will pollute our air, and line the pockets of oil and auto CEOs. We are confident of stopping Trump’s CAFE standards rollback.”

“The Trump administration’s rollback will mean wasted gas, more air pollution, and higher costs for Americans who are already struggling with high fuel prices,” said Andy Su, senior transportation attorney at Environmental Defense Fund. “We’re going to court to oppose this dangerous U-turn away from decades of successful work to make our cars more efficient and less expensive to drive.”

In 2025, I sat locked in a room in a private home as military officials camped on the front porch. A surveillance photo of me taken that morning was circulating on WhatsApp around Kawasi Village, where I was staying on Obi Island in Indonesia. I was visiting as a representative of Earthworks, along with colleagues from Indonesian environmental NGO WALHI.

When I heard that surveillance and harassment resulted in WALHI staff and journalists abandoning their attempted reporting trip to that same village this summer, I recognized a pattern.

The North Maluku branch of the Indonesian NGO WALHI has experienced an environment of increasing hostilities and intimidation related to their work to support and advocate with mining-impacted communities on Obi Island. I saw it first hand. Now reporters had seen it too.

Nickel mining transforms a fishing village

The story on Obi Island has global significance. Nickel mining is booming in Indonesia. The country’s annual nickel production in 2015 was 130,000 tons. In 2025, it was 2.6M tons. This island nation is now responsible for more than 60 percent of the world’s nickel production. Much of that nickel goes into batteries, including batteries for electric vehicles. 

In 2010, Obi Island, known for its fishing and spice economy, became the site of a large nickel mining and processing operation owned by Harita Group. Since its opening, the operation has  caused an explosion of environmental and social harms:

• environmental pollution, 
• toxic and carcinogenic chemical leaks that affect drinking water,
• displacement of local residents, 
• health issues, 
• mine waste facilities that are at risk for catastrophic failure, and 
• reports of threats and intimidation and harassment of people speaking out.

Accountability depends on information justice

Kawasi Village residents have called for more transparency around Harita’s operations. WALHI and the Indonesian Society of Environmental Journalists (SIEJ) point out that, “there can be no environmental justice without information justice.”

A transition to cleaner transportation needs to be built with minerals that are sourced responsibly, and operations on Obi Island are raising concerns. Buyers, consumers, human rights advocates, environmentalists, and others are starting to pay attention. 

Communities need to be able to tell their stories without fear, and the media must be able to report those stories to the public. 

Companies and governments around the world use fear and harassment to try to silence communities that are defending their rights in the face of mining operations. But at Earthworks, we know that people who are standing up for their families and their land and water are not easy to silence, and their voices must be heard in order to find lasting solutions.

Journalists cancel visit due to intimidation

Most recently, a group of journalists experienced intimidation and surveillance. Over the course of four days in June and July 2026, WALHI and SEIJ jointly organized a trip for five journalists to report about the situation on Obi Island. 

The journalists who attended were from Konde, which focuses on women’s issues in Indonesia; Mongabay, an international environmental science publication; Project Multatuli, a collective focused on underreported populations and holding power accountable; Bahalo Project; and Tempo, one of the largest and best-known newspapers in Indonesia. 

Obi Island is only reachable by boat, and the surveillance began while the group was on a ferry, en route to the island. Two people began following the group on board the ferry and asking questions about the purpose of their work and trip to Obi Island. 

When the SIEJ and WALHI group arrived on Obi Island, the police chief said that they had entered without alerting local authorities and security officials. Residents of one of the towns on the island, Kawasi Village, had to come and help transport the group to safety. 

A group from Eco Village, a village where Harita has relocated some residents impacted by their operations, also attempted to turn the reporters away at the port.

The journalists were forced to cancel their visit to the area and were unable to continue their reporting work.

Indonesian military surveillance targets Earthworks and WALHI

This is not the first time that civil society groups have faced intimidation and surveillance while visiting Obi Island for work regarding Harita Group’s operations and impacts. 

In April 2025, during a visit with WALHI staff to Kawasi Village, I was surveilled and harassed by military security officials. 

Within 12 hours of arriving on the ferry, my photo was circulating via WhatsApp messages. Military security contacted a colleague to let them know that they had my photo and to ask questions about the purpose and timing of my visit. Plainclothes military officials visited the home where I was staying with a local family. The officers camped out on the front porch for hours while I stayed locked away in my room. 

The harassment continued while in transit leaving Obi Island. Plainclothes military officials turned up on a neighboring island as we switched boats. They began interrogating WALHI colleagues about me and our visit to Kawasi Village. I decided to spend the nearly 24-hour trip that remained inside a small cabin to avoid further harassment by the officials.  

These tactics effectively limited Earthworks and WALHI’s ability to witness mining impacts on the village and surrounding areas and to speak with community members living near Harita’s operations. 

Intimidation pattern raises concerns

Harita Group’s operations on Obi Island are currently undergoing an audit by the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance. IRMA offers independent assessments of whether or not specific industrial mines meet standards for responsible mining. Voluntary standards like IRMA can be a powerful way to improve mining companies’ practices. Everyone involved, including communities and NGO staff, needs to be able to engage in the process without fear.

Both incidents took place around the time when IRMA auditors were expected to be visiting the area. The 2025 incident occurred just days before the onsite audit. Currently, Harita is nearing the end of its optional corrective action period as part of this audit. That means another review of the operations by the audit team will take place in the coming months. 

Earthworks reported these incidents to the audit team, highlighting concerns about residents’ ability to safely participate in the audit without fear of intimidation or retaliation, as well as the pattern of military security restricting access to Kawasi Village, the community most directly affected by Harita’s operations. In its July 2026 update, Harita states that “During and beyond the CAP process, communities, and other stakeholders may raise concerns at any time through our whistleblowing and public grievance channels, which allow anonymous or non-anonymous reporting, with each matter logged, reviewed, and tracked through to resolution.” 

Effective corporate grievance mechanisms like Harita’s require trust that reports will result in action to address the issue and that retaliation will not result — or they require stakeholders to carefully weigh the risks to themselves and others. Now that my experience is part of a pattern, I decided to share this story publicly.

Earthworks and Indonesian NGOs call on officials uphold human rights and transparency

WALHI and SIEJ point out that Law 40 in Indonesia protects freedom of press and freedom from interference  and Law 32 and the Indonesian Constitution protect the right to a healthy environment. Attempts to silence reporting on the impacts from mining operations on Obi Island are not in the spirit of the national laws upholding democratic institutions and good governance. 

Community members, NGO experts, and reporters must be able to speak about the impacts of mining without harassment and fear. Their knowledge and insights are important for buyers, policymakers, and advocates. We need truth, not silence, to build a sustainable future that works for everyone. 

Earthworks joins WALHI AND SIEJ’s call for Harita Group to uphold the principles of democracy, human rights, transparency, and freedom of press.

The post Silencing the Story: Surveillance and Harassment Limit Reporting on Harita’s Nickel Operations in Indonesia appeared first on Earthworks.

Federal auction of 43 parcels, including land inside SB 1137’s health protection zones, puts California’s landmark public health law in the crosshairs of Trump’s “drill baby drill” agenda

SACRAMENTO, CA — As the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) set a Dec. 1 date to auction off oil and gas drilling rights on roughly 35,000 acres of California public land — the largest oil and gas lease sale since 2009 — 75 environmental justice, health, faith, Indigenous and conservation organizations representing millions of Californians are asking Governor Newsom to protect Californians from federal overreach. 

In a letter sent to Governor Newsom, Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot, Deputy Cabinet Secretary Sarah Swig and State Oil and Gas Supervisor Douglas Ito, the coalition warns that the Trump administration has launched “an all-out attack on our state’s health and environment” by opening up acres of land for oil drilling on the state’s federal land. It urges the Newsom administration to uphold his commitment to the progress he made during his two terms by locking in the protections of SB 1137, the landmark law that prohibits oil drilling within 3,200 feet of communities, and California’s fracking ban before his term ends.

BLM announced today that it will offer 43 parcels in Kern, Kings, San Luis Obispo and Fresno counties at an online lease sale on Dec. 1, 2026. A 30-day public protest period opened today and closes Nov. 2. BLM itself notes that leasing is only the first step, and that no development can begin until an operator applies for a permit to drill, a process in which BLM coordinates with state partners, including CalGEM. That state permit is where California has the power to say no.

“In Kern County, we already live next to thousands of oil wells. BLM calls leasing ‘just the first step.’ We know where those steps lead: to more asthma, more cancer, more families breathing in someone else’s profits. The state permit is the last line of defense, and it has to hold.” said Cesar Aguirre,  Director of the Air & Climate Justice Team Central California Environmental Justice Network (CCEJN).

“The federal government just put a date on the calendar to auction off drilling rights next to California homes and schools. Governor Newsom has two months to make sure that when those leases are sold, the state’s answer to new wells in our neighborhoods is already written down: no.” said Ilonka Zlatar, California Climate Justice Organizer with the Oil and Gas Action Network (OGAN).

A federal lease sale that reaches into health protection zones

In June, the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) opened more than a million acres of California public land to new oil and gas leasing, including fracking. More than 175,000 people submitted comments opposing it, but BLM made virtually no changes and continues to ignore California’s related laws. Its proposed December 2026 lease sale covers 44 parcels, roughly 36,000 acres in the Bakersfield and Central Coast regions. The sale includes:

• Nearly 3,800 acres inside SB 1137’s health protection zones, the 3,200-foot buffers that keep new wells away from homes, schools, daycares and hospitals
• Nearly 13,000 acres bordering Carrizo Plain National Monument
• More than 1,300 acres within the Lokern-Buena Vista and Chico Martinez Areas of Critical Environmental Concern & habitat for endangered species

“These public lands are precious wild spaces that belong to all Californians, not the polluting oil industry,” said Victoria Bogdan Tejeda, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute. “Trump’s nonsensical fossil fuel frenzy is no excuse to sacrifice California wildlife, communities and the climate. We won’t let this reckless land grab stand.”

BLM’s environmental assessment found “no significant impact” to the drilling expansion. It also found, preliminarily, that no historic properties would be affected, even though the land is within the ancestral homelands of the Chumash, Yokuts and Salinan peoples and near Painted Rock, one of the most significant Indigenous sacred sites in North America.

“This land holds our ancestors’ stories. This 36,000 acre oil lease is on the ancestral homelands of several Tribal Nations, including the Yokuts, Mono, Shoshone, Chumash, Kawaiisu, Tejon, Salinan, and Tübatulabal relatives. For the federal government to claim that drilling near Painted Rock would affect no historic properties shows how little regard it has for Indigenous Peoples. This affects the health of millions of community members, as well as the health of the lands, waters, and natural relatives. California must not rubber-stamp it,” said Starry Insixingmay, Sacred Places Institute for Indigenous Peoples. 

The lease sale comes as the U.S. Department of Justice, representing BLM, continues its lawsuit to overturn SB 1137’s health protection zones. On March 31, 2026, a federal court refused the administration’s request to suspend the law while the case proceeds, finding that the federal government “has not demonstrated that it is likely to succeed” on the merits. The lawsuit is still ongoing.

No oil or gas well can be drilled in California, whether on federal, state or private land, without a permit from the state’s Geologic Energy Management Division (CalGEM). That permitting process is discretionary. The coalition is asking the Newsom administration to:

1. Direct CalGEM to require full review under the California Environmental Quality Act for any permit tied to this lease sale or any future federal lease, instead of relying on BLM’s federal environmental assessment.
2. Affirm that SB 1137’s health protection zones apply in full to every well permit, whether the land or mineral rights are federal, state or private.
3. Confirm that the state will enforce its fracking ban on all drilling projects, including those on federal leases.

The groups ask the administration to put these directives in writing through rulemakings, policies, executive orders or guidelines, so the protections outlast the current administration.

“Frontline communities fought for years to win SB 1137. We can’t let a federal agency erase it with a ‘no significant impact’ finding. The Governor has the authority to stop this, and we’re asking him to use it before he leaves office.” said Tanvi Kardile, Coalition Manager for Voices in Solidarity Against Oil in Neighbourhoods (VISION). 

The coalition points to Santa Barbara as a warning. There, the Trump administration moved to restart Sable Offshore’s long-dormant, failed pipeline over the objections of the state agencies responsible for protecting the coast. “Just as the state is fighting that action,” the letter says, “it must do everything it can to defend SB 1137 and the state’s fracking ban.California led the nation in protecting communities from the harms of oil and gas drilling,” the letter concludes. “We are asking all of you, together, to use that time and that authority now — this is your legacy to protect.”

Signers include Voices In Solidarity Against Oil in Neighborhoods (VISION), the California Environmental Justice Alliance, Communities for a Better Environment, Sierra Club California, Sacred Places Institute for Indigenous Peoples, Physicians for Social Responsibility – Los Angeles, Oil Change International, GreenLatinos and others. The full letter and list of signers are available here.

The post As Trump Sets Largest Oil & Gas Lease Sale in Almost 20 Years, 75 Groups Urge Gov Newsom: Protect California Before You Go appeared first on Last Chance Alliance.

Clean Air Council is seeking proposals from qualified transportation engineering and planning consultants to conduct pedestrian, bicycle and public transportation studies at three colleges in the Greater Philadelphia region.

The selected consultant will assess transportation conditions at three institutions of higher education in Philadelphia, Delaware and Bucks Counties and identify opportunities to make it safer, easier and more convenient for students, faculty and staff to walk, bike and use public transportation on and around their campuses.

The work will include evaluating existing pedestrian, bicycle and public transit infrastructure; identifying safety hazards and barriers to getting around without a car; assessing accessibility; engaging campus stakeholders; and developing recommendations for infrastructure improvements, policies and programs.

Findings and recommendations from the studies will help inform a University Toolkit for each participating college, providing strategies for improving transportation safety, accessibility, sustainability and connectivity.

About the Project

The project is supported by a Transportation Options Program (TOP) grant administered by the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC) and made possible with Federal Highway Administration transportation funds.

Clean Air Council will work with DVRPC, TMA Bucks, Delaware County Transportation Management Association and three participating colleges on the project.

Important Dates

Optional Info Session: October 13, 2026 at 12 p.m. ET
Register

Deadline for Written Questions: October 15, 2026 at 11:59 p.m. ET
Submit to Titania Markland at tmarkland@cleanair.org.

Proposal Submission Deadline: November 2, 2026 at 11:59 p.m. ET
Submit to Titania Markland at tmarkland@cleanair.org.

Anticipated Contract Start Date: January 15, 2027

Interested in submitting a proposal?

Review the full Request for Proposal for information about the scope of services, consultant qualifications, submission requirements and selection process.

VIEW THE FULL RFP

The extraordinary legal afterlife of the Shell-Eni OPL 245 affair has produced another important development.

The detailed judgment behind the acquittal of former Milan prosecutors Fabio De Pasquale and Sergio Spadaro has now been published—and it overturns the proposition that their handling of potentially favourable material in the Shell-Eni Nigeria prosecution amounted to a criminal refusal to perform their duties.

The extraordinary legal afterlife of the Shell-Eni OPL 245 affair has produced another important development.

Italy’s Court of Cassation has published the reasoning behind its decision to clear former Milan prosecutors Fabio De Pasquale and Sergio Spadaro, who had themselves been convicted after the collapse of the enormous corruption prosecution involving Shell, Eni and Nigeria’s controversial OPL 245 offshore oil licence.

The decision is significant because the two prosecutors had previously been convicted twice—at first instance and on appeal—and sentenced to eight months’ imprisonment for refusing to perform official acts.

Italy’s highest court overturned those convictions on 18 June 2026.

Now we know in much greater detail why.

In judgment No. 34812/2026, whose reasons were filed on 29 September, the Court of Cassation concluded that the action the prosecutors were accused of failing to perform was not legally mandatory and involved prosecutorial discretion. It therefore did not constitute the criminal offence for which they had been convicted. Giurisprudenza Penale

That provides an important new chapter in a story that has been running for well over a decade.

The prosecution that turned on its prosecutors

The origins lie in the notorious OPL 245 transaction.

In 2011 Shell and Eni participated in agreements involving the Nigerian government concerning rights to the enormous deep-water offshore block.

The transaction subsequently became the subject of international investigations and allegations that money paid in connection with the deal ultimately benefited Nigerian officials and other individuals.

Shell and Eni denied corruption.

Italian prosecutors eventually brought one of the largest international corporate corruption cases ever tried in Italy.

Then, on 17 March 2021, the Milan Tribunal acquitted Shell, Eni and the individual defendants. The acquittals subsequently became final after prosecutors withdrew their appeal. Shell maintains that there was never evidence of a corrupt agreement or corrupt payments. Shell

But the story did not end there.

Instead, attention turned to the conduct of the prosecutors themselves.

Accused of withholding favourable material

De Pasquale and Spadaro were accused of failing to make available material that could have assisted the defendants.

The controversy included chats and other material originating from another investigative strand being handled by fellow prosecutor Paolo Storari.

The accusation was serious: that information potentially favourable to defendants in the OPL 245 trial had not been acquired and disclosed when it should have been.

A Brescia court convicted the prosecutors, and in October 2025 an appeals court upheld their eight-month sentences.

The Brescia appeal judgment took a particularly strong position. According to ANSA’s January 2026 report on the reasons, the appeal court characterised the failure to deposit favourable material as a conscious refusal to carry out an obligatory and urgent act. ANSA.it

The Court of Cassation has now rejected the criminal-law foundation of that conclusion.

What Italy’s highest court actually decided

This is where the newly published judgment becomes particularly important.

The Cassation Court stressed that the case before it was not a general inquiry into whether every aspect of the prosecutors’ behaviour was correct.

Nor was it questioning the prosecutor’s obligation to act loyally and impartially.

The much narrower legal question was whether the particular conduct amounted to the specific criminal offence of refusing to perform an official act under Article 328 of the Italian Criminal Code.

The answer was no.

The court concluded that the act the prosecutors supposedly refused to perform was not a mandatory act required by the relevant provisions of the Italian Code of Criminal Procedure. Instead, it involved what the court described as delicate discretionary assessments belonging to the prosecutor responsible for the case. Giurisprudenza Penale

That distinction is crucial.

A prosecutor may have duties of fairness and impartiality, but according to the Cassation Court it does not follow that every disputed prosecutorial decision constitutes a criminal refusal to perform an official duty.

As the court’s reasoning makes clear, not every possible breach of professional correctness is itself a crime. Giurisprudenza Penale

The disputed chats

The judgment goes further.

According to the published summary of the Cassation decision, the failure to acquire the chats identified by Storari did not involve decisive exculpatory evidence, and the decision not to acquire them was not improper in the criminal-law sense at issue before the court. Giurisprudenza Penale

The court also found that there had been no criminally relevant act of refusal or attributable omission by De Pasquale and Spadaro.

Their position had effectively been referred upwards to the Milan chief prosecutor and deputy chief prosecutor, who did not override it. Giurisprudenza Penale

That is a markedly different interpretation from that reached by the lower courts.

Two convictions wiped away

This was not a retrial producing a reduced sentence.

The Court of Cassation annulled the convictions without remitting the case for another trial, using the formula perché il fatto non sussiste—essentially, because the alleged criminal act did not exist.

The judgment therefore brought the criminal proceedings against the prosecutors to an end. Giurisprudenza Penale

Global Investigations Review now reports the decision under the succinct headline:

“Shell-Eni prosecutors didn’t breach legal duties.” globalinvestigationsreview.com

That is broadly accurate as a description of the criminal-law finding, although the judgment itself contains an important nuance: the Cassation Court deliberately distinguished the question of criminal liability from a broader assessment of prosecutorial conduct.

That distinction should not be lost.

An extraordinary reversal

The sequence is remarkable.

First, Shell, Eni and the individual defendants were prosecuted over one of the biggest alleged international corruption schemes to reach an Italian courtroom.

They were acquitted.

Then two of the prosecutors who brought the case were themselves prosecuted over their handling of potentially favourable material.

They were convicted.

Their convictions were upheld on appeal.

And now Italy’s highest court has overturned those convictions completely.

Reuters reported after the June ruling that the prosecutor-general before the Court of Cassation had himself sought the full acquittal of De Pasquale and Spadaro. Euronext

But this does not rewrite the OPL 245 record

Care is required here.

The Cassation decision does not convict Shell or Eni of anything.

Their Italian criminal acquittals remain final.

Equally, the new judgment should not be read as a judicial declaration resolving every historical controversy surrounding OPL 245.

The Court of Cassation was deciding whether De Pasquale and Spadaro committed a particular criminal offence through their handling of material during the prosecution.

It concluded they did not.

That is a much narrower proposition.

The underlying OPL 245 documentary history—including the negotiations, payment structures, internal corporate communications and differing interpretations of what participants knew—continues to exist independently of the eventual criminal outcomes.

Indeed, an extensive collection of documents from the Milan proceedings remains publicly archived by the OPL245 Papers project. OPL245 Papers

Shell and Eni are back in OPL 245

There is another reason why this historical litigation remains relevant in 2026.

OPL 245 is no longer merely an old courtroom story.

Earlier this year the Nigerian government reached an agreement enabling the former OPL 245 acreage to move forward under Nigeria’s Petroleum Industry Act.

The former licence has been converted into two petroleum mining leases and two petroleum prospecting licences, involving Eni as operator alongside the Nigerian national oil company and Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company.

Shell describes the licences as part of its expanding Nigerian deep-water portfolio. Shell

Thus an oil block that spent years generating investigations, criminal proceedings, civil claims and international controversy is once again part of Shell and Eni’s commercial future.

The latest chapter, not necessarily the last word

The newly released Cassation judgment closes one remarkable subsidiary chapter of OPL 245.

Fabio De Pasquale and Sergio Spadaro stand acquitted.

Their previous convictions have been annulled.

Italy’s highest court has found that the prosecutorial decision at issue involved discretion rather than a mandatory legal act whose refusal constituted a crime. Giurisprudenza Penale

That does not reverse Shell and Eni’s acquittals.

It does something different.

It means that the prosecutors who unsuccessfully pursued Shell and Eni have now themselves emerged from the criminal justice system without convictions.

For anyone attempting to write a definitive history of OPL 245, that distinction matters.

The case has produced an extraordinary succession of allegations, investigations, trials, acquittals, prosecutions of prosecutors, convictions of those prosecutors—and finally the annulment of those convictions by Italy’s highest court.

And after all of that, Shell and Eni are once again preparing to develop the Nigerian acreage at the centre of the entire affair.

Sources: Global Investigations Review, 1 October 2026; Italian Court of Cassation, Sixth Criminal Section, Judgment No. 34812/2026, reasons filed 29 September 2026; Reuters; Giurisprudenza Penale; Shell plc; Eni; ANSA; OPL245 Papers. globalinvestigationsreview.com

OPL 245 Twist: Italy’s Supreme Court Says Shell-Eni Prosecutors Did Not Breach Their Legal Duties was first posted on October 2, 2026 at 5:41 pm.
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Arizona is one signature away from its fourth national park. The Senate passed a bill by unanimous consent Wednesday to redesignate Chiricahua National Monument as a national park and sent it to President Trump’s desk.

The bill was sponsored by U.S. Representative Juan Ciscomani and U.S. Senators Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego. It leaves the monument’s roughly 12,000-acre boundaries as they are, and it requires consultation with Tribes and continued access for traditional Tribal uses.

Local officials hope the new name will bring more tourists to a site that had just over 70,000 visitors last year. Bill Wade, executive director of the Association of National Park Rangers, said Chiricahua is “certainly worthy of national park status,” but added, “Like a lot of other areas, it is most likely understaffed.”

Some of Chiricahua’s basic needs are already on hold. A new interactive map from the Center for Western Priorities shows 1,492 Park Service projects that Interior department officials classified as “low priority.” Three of them are at Chiricahua: emergency mold abatement in occupied staff housing, replacing electrical systems in historic buildings, and security upgrades. Top-priority work was fast-tracked instead, including a $16 million effort to paint the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool blue.

“These are the everyday projects that keep parks open and running: roof repairs, replacing outdated computers, even buying toilet paper and garbage bags. None of that is low priority. It’s the basic work of national parks,” said Lilly Bock-Brownstein of the Center for Western Priorities.

MLB drops proposal to host baseball game at Grand Teton National Park

Major League Baseball has dropped its proposal to host a game in Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park. Last weekend, the Washington Post reported that a National Park Service official scouted possible sites. Local leaders then sent letters to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred expressing “strong opposition.” In a Thursday letter, Manfred wrote that “it has become clear the local community does not want us to continue evaluating Grand Teton National Park as a potential site.”

Quick hits Interior is paying $3.4M to repair the national mall’s turf

Washington Sun

DC judge permanently dismisses case charging ex-Olympian with vandalizing Reflecting Pool

Associated Press

The Trump admin cut funding to a conservation nonprofit. The group has no idea why

SFGATE

South Korea contests U.S. claims of new $50 billion pipeline in Alaska

Wall Street Journal

MLB drops proposal to host a baseball game at Grand Teton National Park

Associated Press | Washington Post | Jackson Hole News & Guide |

Conservation groups sue to halt expansion of Hermosa mine onto public lands in Arizona

Tucson Sentinel

Chiricahua National Park Act headed to President Trump may create Arizona’s fourth national park

Arizona’s Family | Arizona Daily Star | 13 News | KGUN | KVOA

4 more endangered California condors take flight near the Grand Canyon

Arizona Republic

Quote of the day

It’s very bewildering to see these cuts at a time when public interest and love for public lands is at an all-time high.”

—Peter Woodruff, executive director of the Great Basin Institute, SFGATE

Picture This @devilstowernps

While Katmai had its Fat Bear Week, here at Devils Tower we are entering our Fat Prairie Dog Week. In preparation for winter prairie dogs will also fatten up. The fatter the prairie dog the better chance it has of surviving the winter. While the prairie dogs in the park don’t hibernate, food can be scarce in the winter, so they need to pack on the pounds. Below is the fattest prairie dog we have ever seen at Devils Tower National Monument. What has been your best sighting of a plump animal? NPS/Brian C. #DevilsTower#FindYourPark

 

(Featured image: Chiricahua National Monument, Arizona. Photo by Ken Lund, Flickr)

The post Chiricahua positioned to become Arizona’s newest national park appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

Several major banks that helped set up the UN’s now-defunct Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA) in 2021 have since continued to lend money to coal companies, a new report has revealed.

Bank of America, Barclays, Citibank, Deutsche Bank and Santander were heavily involved in the NZBA and the associated Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ) when it was launched by Mark Carney, then a UN climate envoy and now Canada’s leader, in the run-up to the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow.

Despite their involvement, data released this week shows those banks and some others did not reduce the amount of money they lent, nor the value of their underwriting, to coal activities between 2022 and 2025. Around half of the NZBA members who were engaged in coal financing over that time increased it and half cut it, according to the report by German environmental research group Urgewald.

Ana Botín, executive chair of Santander, was a member of the GFANZ CEO principals’ group and said at the time of the NZBA launch that her Spanish bank was “proud to be part of the founding members of this new alliance and to accelerate progress towards net zero”.

Since then, the report’s data documents that Santander has provided loans and underwriting worth hundreds of millions of dollars each year to coal companies, particularly American coal-power plant operators Duke Energy and the Southern Company. Santander did not respond to a request for comment.

Urgewald’s research adjusts the value of loans and underwriting provided to coal companies based on how much of a company’s revenues come from the most polluting fossil fuel. So a hypothetical $100 million loan to German utility RWE is valued at $21 million, as 21% of RWE’s revenue is from coal.

The research does not take account of whether companies are expanding their coal business or phasing it out for greener alternatives. Some banks have said their coal clients need to put in place transition plans by a certain date. Some also say that, by a certain date, they will stop lending money to clients that get more than a set percentage of their revenue from coal.

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Most companies expanding coal are in Asian nations like China, India and Indonesia and are largely financed by banks from their own countries. But there are examples of NZBA founding members supporting companies that are actively prolonging the life of their coal businesses.

For example, Glencore, a Switzerland-based multinational that gets 4% of its revenue from coal, has just won preliminary regulatory approval to keep on coal mining in Australia’s Hunter Valley until 2045. Last year, the company was supported by loans and underwriting from Bank of America, Citigroup, Santander, Barclays, Deutsche Bank, HSBC and Standard Chartered.

Good and bad news

Some NZBA founding members like Swiss giant UBS have reduced their loans and underwriting for coal companies, the data suggests. Others – like Triodos and Kenya Commercial Bank – have provided no support for coal companies since at least 2021.

Urgewald researcher Hannah O’Neill told Climate Home News that “the banking sector is not moving in one direction. There is a growing divide between banks that are tightening their coal policies and reducing their exposure, and those where coal policies remain weak or where financing continues.” 

Unlike the UN’s Race to Zero campaign, with which it partnered, the NZBA did not require its members to end financing for fossil fuels like coal, leading to accusations by climate campaigners that its rules were too weak.

Despite this, after Donald Trump’s re-election as US president in November 2024, several North American banks quit the alliance and the NZBA’s requirements were diluted in April 2025. After further withdrawals, the group shut itself down in October 2025.

Globally, the Urgewald report found that many banks in the European Union, Thailand, Malaysia, India and Taiwan have reduced their coal finance since governments agreed at COP26 to phase down coal power.

But with Chinese, American, Indonesian and South Korean banks increasing their support, total bank financing for the coal industry has remained broadly the same each year since 2022. 

“Coal financing is not disappearing – but it is concentrating in banks and markets where coal policies are either missing or weak,” said Heffa Schücking, director of Urgewald.

Urgewald’s definition of coal companies includes firms and their subsidiaries that explore for, process, trade, transport and mine coal, or burn it in power plants to produce electricity, or manufacture equipment for the coal industry. It does not include companies that use coal to make cement or steel – and an adjustment is made to account for how much of the business model is coal-related.

Banks defend delays

At the time of publication, most of the banks named in the report for increasing their coal finance had not responded to requests for comment. But a spokesperson for Deutsche Bank pointed Climate Home News to its May 2026 announcement that it was delaying its requirement for existing clients to present it with transition plans and cut their coal exposure.

Instead of having to present these plans by the end of 2025, the bank has given them until the end of 2027. They will also have to ensure that their revenue share from thermal coal falls below half by then, the bank added. New clients need energy transition plans to access finance.

Deutsche Bank said at the time it was delaying its requirements because of the “increasingly complex regulatory environment as well as differing speeds of energy transition in various regions beyond what was anticipated by Deutsche Bank in 2023”.

Big banks’ lending to coal backers undermines Indonesia’s green plans 

A spokesperson for Barclays told Climate Home News: “Many companies in this report are diversified energy or mining companies. We do not provide financing to companies that generate more than 30% of revenues from thermal coal mining or power generation, and we will phase out all financing by 2035.”

The Barclays spokesperson added: “Barclays is financing an energy sector in transition, providing finance to meet current energy needs and also financing the scaling of clean energy. Over the past three years, we have facilitated more than $300 billion of sustainable and transition finance, including billions to cleaner energy projects, and invested millions into climate tech.”

The post Big banks behind “net zero” alliance continued lending to coal firms appeared first on Climate Home News.

From a morning of birding in Central Park to discussions on clean energy, conservation careers, and the future of nature, birds provided a common thread throughout Audubon’s Climate Week NYC...

The post Four Ways North Carolina Can Meet Growing Electric Loads Without Increasing Utility Bills appeared first on ACEEE | American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.

(2025 KXL Pipeline Fighters Gathering)

Join us for a fall gathering of Keystone XL Pipeline Fighters. We have defeated this pipeline 3 times now… and it’s NOT coming back!

• WHAT: Fall Gathering of Keystone XL Pipeline Fighters
• WHEN: Saturday, Nov. 7, 11am – 4pm
• WHERE: KC Hall, 106 S. Sherrill St., Atkinson, NE
• *PLEASE RSVP* via Text or Email:
  402-340-8548
  bdsteskal@gmail.com

Bring your Favorite Dish to Share! Tableware, Napkins, & Drinks Provided!

“Good Food is all the sweeter when shared with good Friends.”

The post Fall Gathering of Keystone XL Pipeline Fighters (Potluck) appeared first on Bold Nebraska.

Chicago, Denver and New York City joined multistate lawsuits challenging the agency’s move to end greenhouse gas emissions standards and failure to enforce requirements on existing gas-fired plants.

August brought signs of growing pressure on several fronts for Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom, from questions surrounding major construction projects abroad to the first decline in its foreign revenue in a decade.

Meanwhile, at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine, repeated attacks, losses of external power and difficulties securing diesel fuel underscored the precarious conditions surrounding Europe’s largest nuclear station.

Paks II faces a political — and environmental — rethink

In Hungary, the future of the Russian-built Paks II nuclear power plant has come under renewed scrutiny from the new government of Prime Minister Peter Magyar.

Magyar said in August that experts considered the existing permit for the project untenable and that the government was conducting a comprehensive review that would determine, among other things, whether Rosatom could continue building the plant.

Rosatom chief Alexey Likhachev insisted work was continuing according to plan. But Magyar pointed to the project’s long delays: under the original contract Paks II was supposed to be operating by 2024, while Hungary has already spent around 1 trillion forints (€2.8 billion) on the project. At the same time, Budapest is proposing to more than double its 2026 budget financing for Paks II, suggesting that abandonment of the project is not currently on the table.

Bellona nuclear expert Dmitry Gorchakov argues that the review should extend beyond the project’s finances. Extreme heat and exceptionally low water levels in the Danube forced the existing Paks plant to sharply reduce output this summer, raising questions about the cooling system planned for two additional reactors.

“At the same time, judging by Hungary’s continued financing of the project, a complete abandonment of Paks II does not appear to be under consideration,” Gorchakov said. “Under these circumstances, in addition to the financial questions already raised about the project’s cost, the problems facing the existing Paks plant due to extreme heat and low water levels in the Danube also raise the question of whether the project’s environmental parameters should be reconsidered — in particular, its cooling system.”

The existing plant already imposes a substantial thermal load on the Danube, while Paks II would add another 9.5 GW of thermal capacity. Gorchakov argues that increasingly frequent heat and drought could make the present cooling design difficult to sustain.

Rosatom’s foreign revenue falls

Those uncertainties come as Rosatom has acknowledged an unusual reversal in its international business. Its newly released 2025 annual report shows foreign revenue falling 4.1 percent to about $17.2 billion, even as overall revenue rose 7.9 percent to 3.33 trillion rubles. Its lifetime foreign project portfolio nevertheless increased to $206.2 billion.

Gorchakov called the decline significant because it follows 10 consecutive years of growth, with foreign revenue increasing by more than 20 percent annually during the previous five years.

Importantly, the decline does not appear to come from Rosatom’s nuclear fuel business. Bellona estimates that nuclear fuel-cycle deliveries increased substantially to the United States and China, and likewise rose in the European Union.

Instead, Rosatom’s report attributes the decline to lower revenues from nuclear plant construction. Gorchakov says this could partly reflect projects such as Bangladesh’s Rooppur plant and Turkey’s Akkuyu reaching later construction stages, but may also reflect “difficulties and additional costs associated with sanctions pressure, the search for alternative ways to transfer funds abroad, and changing suppliers.”

Egypt illustrates the ambiguity. Leaked documents concerning the Rosatom-built El Dabaa plant reportedly described construction defects, nuclear safety culture problems and a possible 18-month delay to the first reactor. Egyptian authorities disputed the characterization. Yet only days later Cairo and Rosatom began discussing adding two more Russian reactors to the four already under construction. See our article from August for more detail.

Zaporizhzhia survives on an increasingly thin margin

The situation at Zaporizhzhia is considerably more immediate. The plant lost its sole remaining external power connection four times during August. After the fourth outage, on August 20, it remained disconnected for roughly three weeks and depended on emergency diesel generators.

That exposed another vulnerability: Russian officials told IAEA inspectors that the last delivery to the plant’s diesel storage facility had occurred in March. A planned May delivery had been prevented by fighting, leaving fuel for approximately 10 days of emergency-generator operation. Operators progressively reduced the number of running generators from seven to four and eventually two, while cooling pumps were operated intermittently to conserve electricity.

The crisis unfolded amid repeated drone incidents around the station and tentative discussion of a possible Russian-Ukrainian energy ceasefire. Bellona nuclear expert Alexander Nikitin sees a larger issue emerging from those developments: ZNPP is no longer simply a civilian nuclear facility endangered by war, but has itself acquired military and political value.

‘Despite the military value of the territory around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, judging by their actions, both sides are trying to prevent the plant from permanently losing its potential energy and political value,” Nikitin writes. “This suggests that ZNPP is viewed not only as a source of nuclear risks, but also as a potential asset in future negotiations.’

That possibility makes preserving the plant important for reasons extending beyond nuclear safety. As Nikitin notes, a destroyed plant has little negotiating value; an intact one retains both political and economic importance.

But the August outages also demonstrate why any future agreement concerning nuclear facilities would have to extend beyond simply prohibiting direct attacks on reactors. Transmission lines, substations and other external infrastructure are essential to keeping a nuclear plant safe.

As Nikitin argues, the war has blurred a boundary nuclear regulation traditionally assumed was clear: a civilian nuclear facility can remain civilian in formal terms while simultaneously becoming an element of military strategy.

The post Rosatom faces pressure abroad as Zaporizhzhia’s nuclear risks deepen appeared first on Bellona.org.

“The Hub” is a weekly round-up of transportation related news in the Philadelphia area and beyond. Check back weekly to keep up-to-date on the issues Clean Air Council’s transportation staff finds important.

Week Without Driving started on Thursday! Join us in the nationwide movement to call for true mobility options for all Pennsylvanians. Take the Week Without Driving Pledge here.

Thank you to everyone who participated, the Pretzel Pedal Challenge is now complete! If you missed this year, you can still create a Share-a-Ride profile and earn points towards gift card drawings all year round. We’ll be back next with more prizes and experiences while cycling towards a cleaner and healthier Philadelphia! 

Image Source: SEPTA

Transit Forward Philadelphia: Drexel Students Share Their Transit Research – Drexel student Sydney Wieczkowski assessed the first phase of SEPTA’s New Bus Network and how it balanced transit efficiency and health equity in the region. When formulating the New Bus Network, SEPTA categorized existing routes as minority or non-minority routes, and low income or non-low-income routes. Sydney then analyzed the effects the proposed changes would have on each route. The research found that several minority and low-income routes could be disproportionately burdened by the changes. While the plan could benefit public health by improving access to public transportation and reducing air pollution, some route changes could create new challenges for riders, including longer walks or additional transfers.

Image Source: Jumping Rocks

The Conversation: What Philly can – and can’t – do to reduce the number of people killed in car crashes – Research has found that Philadelphians are killed in traffic crashes at much higher rates than comparable cities such as Chicago, Boston, and New York. Speeding and hit-and-runs occur at higher rates, and crashes are more likely to occur in dark conditions than the average in four peer cities. Data shows a 27% drop in fatal crashes in Philadelphia in 2025, and 2026 so far has been mirroring this. Automated speed enforcement cameras, such as the ones installed on Roosevelt Boulevard in 2020, have been associated with an 11% decrease in serious crashes. Similar cameras have been installed in other parts of the city, such as on Broad Street, with results still a few years away. However, other traffic-calming measures, such as increased lighting and pedestrian-focused infrastructure, are also needed to improve safety.

Image Source: Billy Penn

Billy Penn: Indego e-bikes dominate Philadelphia bike-share fleet – In July, around 75% of Indego bikes on racks were e-bikes, and some users are skipping them altogether. However, research has shown that while traditional bikes are healthier, e-bikes still improve aerobic fitness. In the first half of 2026, 72% of Indego rides in Philly were on e-bikes. Indego plans to add more traditional bikes to the fleet over the next two years to respond to demand.

Other Stories

PhillyVoice: Fishtown man is biking from Indiana to Pittsburgh to raise money for cancer research

StreetsBlog USA: Transportation Reform Has an Imagination Problem

CBS Pittsburgh: Parkway East and Parkway North seeing heavier traffic patterns lately, PennDOT says

Transportation Today: Pennsylvania begins work on more than 400 miles of “Rapid Deployment Projects”

SEPTA: SEPTA Bus Roadeo Brings Back Competition and Camaraderie