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This article The quiet resistance of working-class women in Egypt was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

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When public dissent is risky or impossible, resistance does not disappear. It often becomes quieter, more practical and harder to recognize. For many working-class women in Egypt, it takes shape not in slogans or demonstrations, but in the daily tactics they use to protect income, reduce dependence, share care work and move more safely through public space.

Samah, a worker in Cairo, offers one example. (The women featured in this article are identified by their first names only, with surnames omitted to protect their privacy.) On her way to work, she buys vegetables for dinner and carries them with her in a plastic bag. During breaks, she and her coworkers prepare the meal together, saving time later when she returns home to cook for her family. The routine is simple and may be entirely overlooked, but it helps her resist the exhaustion, time pressure and economic strain created by the double burden of paid work and unpaid domestic labor in a system that treats both as her sole responsibility. 

Simple everyday acts of financial self-protection, mutual support and safer mobility can become forms of resistance when taking public action carries too high a cost or is out of reach. They are subtle, almost invisible in their execution, and precisely for that reason, they endure. 

The invisible politics — and why invisibility is strategic

What Samah and her coworkers are doing can be easily dismissed as mere coping. Yet they belong to what political scientist James C. Scott describes as “everyday forms of resistance.” In contexts where openly confronting authority can be risky, costly or simply unthinkable, resistance rarely appears as dramatic dissent. It shows up instead as small, repeatable practices that shift how constraint is managed and how power is negotiated in ordinary life.

This resistance is not always directed at the state directly. More often, it operates within the wider informal systems through which domination is organized and reproduced, where women’s spending, mobility and respectability is routinely monitored and policed. For working-class women under scrutiny from employers, supervisors and family, overt confrontation can carry economic, reputational or physical costs. Autonomy is easily recast as deviance; small gains in money, time or independence can be questioned, moralized or withdrawn. Discretion, then, becomes both protection and strategy. By staying within the ordinary rather than stepping outside it, women carve out narrow margins of autonomy that are difficult to punish without revealing the very mechanisms of control that sustain them.

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The quiet work concentrates in recurring arenas where pressure is constant and small shifts matter. What follows traces three stories from these arenas: financial autonomy within monitored household economies, informal networks of mutual support that reduce exposure to dependency, and everyday practices of safety that expand women’s movement through public space. Together, they show that resistance is not always loud, collective or publicly legible. It is often incremental, discreet and embedded in the daily management of money, risk and life.

Financial autonomy as resistance 

At 23-years-old, Shahd works as a nail technician in a small salon. Her main financial challenge is not low income, but limited control over it once it enters the household. Her wages quickly enter a shared economy of obligation where groceries, utilities and family needs take priority and personal spending is weighed against collective responsibility.

“I once wanted to buy a jacket with my own money,” Shahd recalled. “I had the cash, but my father asked if it was really necessary when we still had other obligations, like my little brother’s lessons, so I gave the money to my mother instead.” Control is rarely dramatic. It works through quiet moral accounting that makes self-spending feel like something you have to justify, until you start policing yourself in advance. Visibility is where it tightens most. “If I leave cash in my wallet, it will disappear overnight. That’s normal,” she said, a reminder that cash is not treated as private savings so much as household money that can be absorbed without confrontation.

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Her response is not refusal, but reconfiguration. Instead of keeping savings in visible cash or relying solely on bank transfers that are easily monitored, she quietly diverts small amounts into a separate Vodafone Cash — a secure e-wallet service — account that only she manages. It’s easy to set up, requires little documentation and leaves fewer household-facing traces than bank transfers. “I move small amounts somewhere no one thinks to check before they ultimately disappear,” Shahd said. The sums are modest, but they create a private margin with real consequences. It gives her a small reserve to cover needs as they arise, and even unused, it eases constraint by keeping options open and giving her a sense of control. “I’m not saving for something dramatic; I’m saving so I don’t have to depend on anyone,” she added. 

The impact is less about dramatic transformation than about a gradual widening of what becomes doable under pressure. As these tactics spread, institutions begin to mirror them. For example, Vodafone Cash launched the Maaki initiative in July 2025 to train one million women in Upper Egypt in digital and technological skills. Likewise, the Central Bank of Egypt’s report that women’s financial inclusion reached 70 percent as of June 2025 points to a broader expansion in access to formal tools, and to the growing significance of mechanisms that women can deploy on their own terms.

This is what financial autonomy looks like as resistance, because it breaks the link between earning and control. Even small, privately-held reserves reduce dependence, widen what is possible under pressure and protect the ability to act without permission.

Networks as resistance

At 32-years-old, Noura works as an office secretary and raises her child alone. Her biggest challenge is not always money, but what happens when time and responsibility collide. A late meeting, a sick day, a school call can unravel the whole day if there is no one to hand things to.

So, she relies on an informal infrastructure of women who operate like an always-on relay. Someone steps in for pickup, another covers an hour, another brings food, another comes along to a clinic, another makes the calls and finds the workaround. Most of it is coordinated through WhatsApp, a steady stream of voice notes and quick asks that keep the day from falling apart. “I don’t have the option of doing everything alone,” she said. “If I try, I lose something, the job, the child or my mind.” This is not occasional help. It is a shared system of coverage that turns potential crises into manageable problems.

Money runs through the network too, and for Noura the gam‘eya is at its center, a rotating savings circle where women pay in monthly and take turns receiving a lump sum. Because it is predictable, she can plan for fees, rent gaps or emergencies without asking the wrong person at the wrong moment. “The gam‘eya is what saves us,” she said. “I know my date. And if an emergency hits early, the girls start a new one and I take the money first.” 

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Outside the circle, the urgent need for money can come with predatory lenders that require wosolat amana (trust receipts), which easily turn a missed payment into a legal threat. “You sign one paper and suddenly it’s not just debt, it’s a knife to your throat,” she said. “If you’re late once, you can end up in jail.” The gam‘eya keeps her out of that trap. For her, it is not about getting rich, it is about not being cornered. 

Information moves too, with price intelligence, job leads, warnings and quiet knowledge-sharing that helps women navigate risk without generating a visible target. Through these overlapping exchanges, the network becomes a low-visibility welfare system, one that redistributes resources, absorbs shocks and builds a form of collective capacity. 

The impact of this kind of networked resistance is quiet but immediate. It resists the everyday power that scarcity creates for those who control access, whether that is employers who can punish absence, intermediaries who profit from inflated prices and informal credit, or household dynamics that enforce dependence by making women ask, explain and wait. 

These systems have been increasingly formalized in digital form, where platforms like MoneyFellows digitize gam‘eyat into app-based “money circles,” and initiatives like Tahweesha are designed to formalize women’s group savings and link them to banking services for rural women. These formalizations show that these circles are not a cultural leftover. They are an essential infrastructure that women built long before institutions learned how to name it.

Mobility as resistance

At 25-years-old, Salma works in an all-women clothes factory, and her shift ends at the hour when the city’s social contract quietly changes. Getting home is not a neutral transition between places so much as a second shift of calculation, where the price of a commute is not only time, but also attention, where routes are chosen for lighting and exits, and where a woman’s presence in public space is treated as negotiable. “The job finishes,” Salma said, “but the day doesn’t end until I close my door.” 

To navigate that pressure, Salma relies on tactics designed to look ordinary enough to survive scrutiny. She makes herself “known” on purpose, greeting the building porter by name, buying small things from the same kiosk so the shopkeeper recognizes her, choosing drivers she trusts when she can, and arranging check-ins that last until she is indoors. “If something happens,” she said, “I don’t want to be a stranger in the street.” This is the steady refusal to disappear.

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But these manoeuvres do more than reduce risk. In a context where harassment is normalized and women are expected to adjust their lives around it, they become a form of everyday resistance to the informal rules that try to shrink the women’s movement. The point is not only to avoid danger, but also to refuse the quiet curfew that says women should not be outside, should not be alone, should not be moving freely on their own terms. 

Much of it is collective, because safety becomes sturdier when it is shared. Around the time the factory releases them, a WhatsApp thread starts moving with the kind of messages that sound casual until you realize they are building a distributed escort system with systemic check-ups. Meanwhile, a friend stays on the phone as Salma walks, a coworker waits for the double-check.

What they are producing is more than reassurance. It is witness, the small social infrastructure that makes harm costlier because a woman is less isolated even when she is physically alone. In a country where a U.N. Women study found that 99.3 percent of women and girls surveyed reported experiencing some form of sexual harassment, this web of recognition is not paranoia. It is adaptation under constraint.

While she is in transit, Salma also uses her phone to make her movements more visible to others and to create a record if something goes wrong. Sometimes she fakes a call and speaks loudly enough to imply that someone is tracking her route and expecting her; other times she quietly records, not to go viral but to make denial harder. “It’s not for drama, it’s so the person knows there will be a trace,” she said. In early 2026, when an Egyptian commuter filmed a man harassing her on a public bus and confronted him on camera, the clip went viral nationwide. Women watched, shared and repeated the lesson, turning filming into peer-to-peer knowledge and making harassment harder to erase. 

The circulation of “self-protection hacks” on social media follows the same logic. In one widely shared TikTok, an Egyptian woman holds up a small spray bottle and explains that because pepper spray can be hard to obtain in Egypt, she carries a homemade substitute made from ordinary kitchen and cleaning items. The point is less the bottle than the reality it exposes: When formal protection is inaccessible, women improvise deterrence from whatever is already within reach and circulate that knowledge peer-to-peer.

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This is why it counts as resistance. Salma is not only protecting herself. She is pushing back against the normalization of women’s vulnerability and the impunity that comes with it. She is refusing the idea that safety is an individual responsibility solved through silence, avoidance or self-blame. Through small, repeatable tactics, women like Salma convert safety into collective power, embedding themselves in networks of recognition so that harassment becomes riskier for the perpetrator than for the woman trying to get home.

Hope is a shared system

These stories are easy to overlook because they do not look like the forms of resistance people usually expect. They are made up of small, practical actions, like preparing dinner during a work shift, quietly setting aside a little money in a phone wallet, using a WhatsApp network to share care and support, or turning on a phone camera to make harassment harder to deny. But when visibility can bring punishment, ridicule or the loss of resources, quieter tactics matter. They help women reduce dependence, protect some control over their lives and push back against everyday pressures without exposing themselves to greater risk.

Shahd creates a private margin inside a monitored household economy, Noura builds welfare through women’s mutual infrastructure, and Salma creates more accountability in public space by staying connected to others and making harassment harder to deny. Their tactics do not overthrow systems in one decisive moment, but they alter the terms on which those systems extract, police and intimidate. The victories are modest and often temporary, yet they accumulate into something sturdier than they appear, a set of survival infrastructures that keep women moving, working, feeding their families and claiming space. 

In periods when public protest is impossible, these quiet practices keep the muscle memory of resistance alive, preserving networks, confidence and small forms of autonomy that can later feed more visible collective action. That is why the plastic bag matters. It is not just lunch. It is a quiet map of power, and a reminder that when resistance cannot be loud, it does not disappear. It changes form, becoming ordinary enough to pass, collective enough to endure and deliberate enough to count. 

This article The quiet resistance of working-class women in Egypt was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

With a loud splash, Shauna Sayers drops the anchor, then plops the first kayak into the shallow waters around Sandy Key in Florida Bay. Sayers, a wading bird specialist at Audubon’s Everglades...

Editor’s note: This edition of our ‘Protect This Place’ column is produced in collaboration with the Climate Listening Project, whose short film appears below.

The Place:

We’re on the Florida Panhandle, from the rare coastal dune lakes of Scenic 30a to the Forgotten Coast, where communities are coming together to stop the petrochemical buildout and preserve this biodiversity hotspot.

Photo by Dayna Reggero Why it matters:

This part of Florida has the greatest diversity of carnivorous plants on Earth, wildlife that lives in both fresh and salt water, and many species that only exist here — endemics. There are more than 2,500 plant species, too, and the Panhandle is an important part of the route of migratory birds and monarch butterflies. The dunes here are critical nesting sites for five endangered species of sea turtles: green, loggerhead, Kemp’s ridley, leatherback, and hawksbill. The endangered Choctawachee Beach mouse plays an important role in creating dunes on the beach by eating the fruits of sea oats and spreading their seeds.

Pelican by Dayna Reggero

Amidst these and other natural wonders, communities have come together over decades to say “no” to offshore oil drilling and gas exports and protect state parks from golf courses. The state has also created the Florida Wildlife Corridor down the peninsula, protecting Florida panthers, and the Northwest Florida Greenway Corridor, with longleaf pine forests going north protecting black bears.

The threat:

The Panhandle, in Seaside, Florida, was where Hands Across the Sand was founded in 2010, with thousands of people coming together along the entire Florida coastline to stop offshore oil drilling. Just down the street, in North Port St. Joe, another movement inspired communities to join in 2024 to stop liquid natural gas exports off the coast. These communities are very different, but the Florida Panhandle inspires a love of place. A petrochemical buildout along the Panhandle threatens the health of our communities and environment.

My place in this place:

I studied environmental communications on the Florida Panhandle in Pensacola. My first job was at the Northwest Florida Zoo in Gulf Breeze, where I worked with endangered species like Bengal tigers, often taking animals on television to talk about problems like poaching. My first board position was with the Emerald Coast Wildlife Refuge, where I worked with local media from Fort Walton Beach to Port St. Joe to share stories about local species through my first blog, Wild Woman. I’ve lived in Walton County and helped to protect the rare coastal dune lakes there — with people like E.O. Wilson, who popularized the term biophilia: the love of all living things. I was recently invited to listen in North Port St. Joe on the Forgotten Coast for my new film, “Apology to Earth.”

When I first moved to the Florida Panhandle 25 years ago and began working along Scenic Route 30a, local people were just beginning to research and understand the rare coastal dune lakes that exist here and in five other places on Earth. These lakes have outfalls through the dunes that open to the gulf and release brackish lake water in exchange for saltwater, resulting in a unique ecosystem. People came together to protect the lakes and stop development from closing more of the outfalls.

Who’s protecting it now:

We need to continue to protect the Florida Panhandle. I’m inspired by the North Port St. Joe community taking care of St. Joseph’s Bay and the Forgotten Coast. Florida Panhandle Minority Communities Climate Change Coalition (FPM4C) is working with individuals and groups along this coast to create sustainable solutions.

North Port St. Joe community / photo by Dayna Reggero What this place needs:

“Together we must stand with one voice against any organization or industrial entity that attempts to locate unhealthy and unsafe environmental and hazardous conditions in or near our community,” says Dannie Bolden of FPM4C.

Dannie Bolden and Dayna Reggero / Photo by Zachary Kanzler See more:

Republish this article for free! Read our reprint policy. Previously in The Revelator:

https://therevelator.org/protect-this-place-connected-communities/

The post Protect This Place: The Florida Panhandle vs. Petrochemicals appeared first on The Revelator.

Registered nurses at Houlton Regional Hospital in Houlton, Maine, will begin a four-day strike on Tuesday, May 26, to protest management’s refusal to address their deep concerns about emergency department staffing and its impact on patient care.

Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed. 
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.

This week UN adopts landmark opinion

ICJ OPINION: The UN has adopted a resolution backing a landmark world court opinion stating that countries have a legal obligation to address climate change, reported the Guardian. Some 141 countries voted in favour of the resolution, while only eight voted against: the US; Israel; Iran; Russia; Belarus; Saudi Arabia; Yemen; and Liberia. There were also 28 absentations, including India and Turkey, the host of COP31.

‘DETERMINED’: The text adopted by the UN general assembly “stresses” that “climate change is an unprecedented challenge of civilizational proportions” and says the assembly is “determined” to “translate the court’s findings into enhanced multilateral cooperation and accelerated climate action at all levels, consistent with international law”. The text “urges” states to implement measures including “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems”. It also “requests” the next UN secretary general to report on progress in 2027 and adds a formal follow-up to the agenda of the UN general assembly in 2028.

AMENDMENTS REJECTED: A UN press summary detailed how countries rejected four proposed amendments to the text by a group of largely Arab nations. These amendments would have undercut the world court’s legal advice on countries’ climate obligations by saying its views should only be taken into account “as appropriate”. They also would have added a reference to 2C, instead of focusing on 1.5C alone, got rid of the formal follow-up process in 2028 and added a reference to the role of carbon capture and storage.

Scenario sceptic

‘GOOD RIDDANCE’: US president Donald Trump declared “good riddance” to a very high emissions modelling scenario in a Truth Social post on Saturday, misleadingly stating that “the United Nations TOP Climate Committee just admitted that its own projections (RCP8.5) were WRONG! WRONG! WRONG!” The post was quickly picked up by right-leaning media, including Fox News, the New York Post and the Australian.

NEW SCENARIOS: Trump’s claim follows the publication of a new set of emissions scenarios that will underpin research cited in the next set of reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In a guest post for Carbon Brief, scientists explained that the very high emissions scenario has “become implausible, based on trends in the costs of renewables, the emergence of climate policy and recent emission trends”. 
TRUMP FACTCHECKED:Carbon Brief published a factcheck of Trump’s claims. It noted that the IPCC does not develop, control or own climate scenarios and has not published anything stating that any climate scenario is “wrong”. It added: “Projections suggest that the world is still on course for between 2.5C and 3C of warming…previously described as ‘catastrophic’ by the UN.”

Around the world

• ADAPTATION NEEDED: The UK’s Climate Change Committee outlined how investing in adaptation now could produce “long-term savings”, Carbon Brief reported. UK ministers are preparing to accept a CCC recommendation to “set a legally binding goal of cutting emissions 87% by 2040”, reported the Times.
• ELECTRIFY EVERYTHING: COP31 president-designate Murat Kurum told the Copenhagen climate ministerial that countries should be “decarbonising the way we generate electricity, but also expanding electrification into every sphere of life”, according to Climate Home News.
• STAFF CUT: Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO, is preparing to fire one-third of the team working on the national climate model that provides future projections, reported the Guardian. 
• TARGET MISSED: An independent body has warned that Germany is expected to miss its 2030 climate goals and emit more CO2 than previously forecast, reported Reuters. According to Deutsche Welle, the country could breach its goal by up to 100m tonnes of CO2.
• PEAK POWER: India’s peak power demand “smashed all records” on Tuesday, after the country’s ongoing heatwave drove a “sharp rise” in electricity consumption, according to the Economic Times. The record fell again on Thursday, said Reuters.

140

The number of countries in the world that have net-zero targets.

2

Major emitters that do not have a net-zero target – a group comprising Iran and the US, according to Carbon Brief analysis.

Latest climate research

• Global warming above 4C is projected to cause large decreases in “climate connectivity” between habitats for land animals | Nature Climate Change
• Around 6% of respiratory deaths in Brazil from 2010-20 were attributable to “non-optimal temperatures”, accounting for more than 66,000 excess deaths | PLOS Climate
• Fungi that cause diseases in plants will approximately double in abundance around the Antarctic Peninsula by 2100 under a moderate emissions scenario | Global Change Biology

(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)

Captured

The world added nearly 100 gigawatts (GW) of new coal-power capacity in 2025 – the equivalent of roughly 100 large coal plants – according to the latest annual report from Global Energy Monitor (GEM). This is a ten-year high, according to Carbon Brief’s coverage, which noted that the world’s coal plants nevertheless generated less electricity. The chart above shows that 95% of the new coal plants were built in India and China last year.

Spotlight Climate migration

This week, Carbon Brief speaks to experts at a conference on migration and climate change in London about what their research could mean for how people move around the world in the future.

Prof Kerilyn Schewel, assistant professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

We have moved beyond a ‘push factor’ narrative – that climate change is coming and uprooting communities – to a more nuanced perspective that recognises that people are already moving for all kinds of reasons… [For example] the more that young people are accessing formal education, the more they want to leave – particularly rural communities. We have to be very careful not to assume that when people want to leave, it is always driven by climate change. There are other developmental factors that are also shaping desires to move. This is a research frontier – seeing how environmental factors intersect with these other social or developmental outcomes.

Dr Aromar Revi, founding director of the Indian Institute for Human Settlements

The future of mobility is much more certain than [climate change is]. People have been mobile for a very long time. That’s been an important part of the transformation of societies and economies for centuries…mobility is part of the solution [to climate change]. It is not the full solution, but it’s part of the solution. People are voting with their feet and with their aspirations to make a change.

Prof Nitya Rao, a professor of gender and development at the University of East Anglia

There are many things that the system can do to welcome migrants and be more sensitive to different types of migrants and their needs… In the short term, [migrants] need piped water, a proper home, care for young children…In the longer term, we have to address structural inequality. There are still barriers to people accessing resources – especially productive assets such as land, capital and livestock…And these barriers are split by gender, class, ethnicity and so on. These need to be addressed, I think, to really make migration a case of [climate] adaptation and not just survival.

Prof Jon Barnett, professor in the school of geography, earth and atmospheric sciences at the University of Melbourne

In the Pacific islands, international migration isn’t driven by climate change. It’s enabled by the capacity of people to cross borders, so it’s all about migration agreements. As climate change amplifies pressures on people’s livelihoods, we may end up with a whole series of transnational populations that are kind of constantly in churn – where they’re not just living on the island, but also in Australia, New Zealand, the US.

Dr Maria Franco Gavonel, lecturer in global social policy and international development at the University of York

The migration response towards almost any climate event is short lived and short distance, so it will mostly affect internal movement rather than international…So all these narratives about climate refugees – like human rights related to international migration – are overstating the extent to which this is going to happen.

Dr Benoy Peter, the executive director of the Centre for Migration and Inclusive Development in India

Every one of us, including you and me, have benefited from migration. Migration is the fastest way for intergenerational upward social mobility for people from socially and economically disadvantaged populations. So I see migration as a [climate] solution.

Cecilia Keating also contributed to this spotlight. Read more of Carbon Brief’s coverage of the conference.

Watch, read, listen

TICE QUESTIONED: The Bloomberg Zero podcast interviewed Richard Tice, the deputy leader of the hard-right Reform UK party, who exposed his rejection of climate science and support for the oil and gas industry.

‘CLIMATE CROSSROADS’: The Guardian examined how Colombia’s upcoming election could leave the major oil-and-gas producer at a “climate crossroads”.

LAND GRAB: A Floodlight investigation for Inside Climate News examined “Trump officials, billionaires and the quiet reshaping of America’s public lands”.

Coming up

• 24 May: Cyprus elections
• 28-29 May: Blue economy and finance forum, Monaco
• 28 May: International Energy Agency (IEA) World Energy Investment 2026 report launch

Pick of the jobs

• Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, editor in chief | Salary: $140,000-$160,000. Location: Washington DC, Chicago or New York City
• Climate Outreach, researcher | Salary: £44,000. Location: Remote (UK)
• University of Manchester, research associate, energy and climate governance | Salary: £37,694-£46,049. Location: Manchester, UK

DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.

This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s weekly DeBriefed email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.

The post DeBriefed 22 May 2026: UN adopts landmark resolution | Trump takes on ‘RCP8.5’ | Climate migration appeared first on Carbon Brief.

The world added dozens of new coal power plants last year in what amounted to the biggest coal buildout in a decade, according to a new analysis. And yet, the amount of electricity generated by coal power plants globally declined.

Read more on E360 →

HB 134 is officially law. HB 134 is a fake “Keep Georgia Forested Act.” Now Governor Kemp has put Georgia’s forests and communities at greater risk. This bill helps the […]

The post Statement: Kemp’s Last Strike Against Georgia Forests first appeared on Dogwood Alliance.

Hundreds of scientists gathered in London this week to discuss the role of migration as a way for communities to adapt to climate change.

The impacts of a warming world, such as sea level rise and worsening extremes, are pushing many people around the world to leave their homes.

As a form of climate adaptation, a decision to migrate involves an array of different factors, such as politics, conflict and economic opportunity.

The conference unpacked these topics, as well as the impacts of climate change on livelihoods, relocation and gender norms across Africa and Asia.

The event had a strong focus on urban areas, with one co-convenor stating that “half of the world’s population now lives in the cities…A lot of the battles of climate adaptation will be won and lost in cities.”

Another co-convenor told Carbon Brief that the conference’s “focus really is on the climate change adaptation community, showing that migration is not a failure of adaptation – it is part of adaptation”. 

Carbon Brief attended the conference to report on the sessions and speak to world-leading experts on climate-driven migration.

• Migration as adaptation
• Cities and livelihoods
• Immobility and relocation
• Legal pathways
• Changing narratives

Migration as adaptation

The two-day conference on “mobility in adaptation to climate change” was held at Wellcome’s headquarters in London. It gathered more than 100 leading experts in migration, adaptation and climate change from countries across Europe, Africa and Asia.

On day one of the conference, co-convenor Prof Neil Adger, a professor from the University of Exeter, told Carbon Brief:

“Our focus really is on the climate change adaptation community, showing that migration is not a failure of adaptation – it is part of adaptation.”

In his opening address, Adger highlighted that there were still many unknowns on climate migration – such as how and when it is an appropriate way to adapt to climate change, and who benefits and loses in these situations.

Prof Neil Adger from the University of Exeter, opening the conference. Credit: Hemant Kumar from the IIHS Media Lab.

Dr Manuela Di Mauro – the head of climate-adaptation research at the UK Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office – took to the stage next. She told attendees that mobility has always been a part of human life, stating:

“We are all migrants. We are all part of the same history.”

She urged the scientific community to “learn the language and the political perspective” needed to support and engage with policymakers about climate-driven migration.

Conference co-convenor Dr Chandni Singh from the Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS) then delivered the first in-depth talk of the conference, outlining the current state of knowledge on climate change and migration.

She explained that cross-border migration is “emotionally and economically arduous” adding “under a changing climate, people choose to move within national borders first”. (Estimates suggest that around three-quarters of total global migration is internal.)

Singh emphasised that “mobility choices are extremely complex and nuanced, based on one’s aspirations and capabilities, social norms and asset bases”. She continued:

“Some [people] are forced to move or are displaced, others are relocated preemptively to move people out of harm’s way and others choose to stay despite escalating risk – or because resilience-building measures allow people to stay.”

She stressed that people need resources to migrate, so the poorest people are often unable to move – leaving them in a state of “immobility”. However, she also noted that most people do not want to leave their homes, stressing the “visceral reality of place attachment”.

Singh explained that many families “live dual lives”, in which family members work in the city to save money for a life back in their village. This dynamic of living across two locations is often referred to as “translocality”.

For example, Singh shared the story of residents from the Indian village of Kolar, who travel more than 100km to and from Bangalore for work every day, or else live there in informal settlements.

These workers send the money they earn back home, where it is often used to dig bore wells to access water. However, Singh warned that climate change and poor water management mean these wells often fail year after year, trapping people in this cycle of travelling to Bangalore to earn more money.

Singh also stressed the prevalence of rural-to-urban migration. She cited UN estimates (that do not explicitly include climate-driven migration), which find that around 2.5 billion people are expected to migrate from rural to urban areas by 2050. It adds that 90% of the change occurring in Africa and Asia.

Singh added:

“Half of the world’s population now lives in the cities…A lot of the battles of climate adaptation will be won and lost in cities.”

She noted that although migration “helps to manage risks”, it also has “significant financial, personal and social costs”. 

Singh went on to discuss the global goal on adaptation – a set of 59 indicators to measure global progress on adaptation. Singh said that “migration and mobility are completely invisible…and therefore completely overlooked” in the goals. 

She concluded by discussing the importance of new narratives on climate change and migration, saying:

“It’s the narratives and stories we tell of this moment that can help us first acknowledge what is happening, help subvert misinformation and untruths, and really demand accountability.”

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Cities and livelihoods

Migration from villages to cities was a central theme of the conference. 

On day two of the conference, Dr Aromar Revi, founding director of the IIHS, told delegates that the “root cause of the climate emergency is maldevelopment” and emphasised the importance of pursuing adaptation, mitigation and development goals together.

Dr Aromar Revi, founding director of the IIHS, addressing conference attendees. Credit: Hemant Kumar from the IIHS Media Lab.

He noted that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is currently working on a special report on climate change and cities and argued that “cities will play a decisive role in shaping global climate futures”.

He continued:

“Cities concentrate opportunities, but they also concentrate poverty, inequality and risk. And that’s something that we really don’t know how to understand, especially in a changing climate.”

Throughout the conference, many of the delegates presented nuanced stories of rural-to-urban migration from individual communities. These case studies highlighted the complex, interlinking factors that drive a person’s decision to move and the wide range of outcomes.

Dr Aysha Jennath from the IIHS presented the results from her research, which unpacks the experiences of migrants who have moved from rural to urban areas, for a range of reasons including the changing climate and for better livelihoods.

Jennath and her colleagues interviewed thousands of migrants living in informal settlements, or working in informal jobs, in large cities in Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal. The researchers’ questions aimed to understand the migrants’ “wellbeing, adaptive capacity and precarity”.

Overall, Jennath found that migrants in large cities are vulnerable to poor housing, unsafe working conditions and a lack of basic social services. 

Dr Binaya Pasakhala and Dr Sabarnee Tuladhar from the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, presented initial results from the Climate Adaptation and Resilience (CLARE) project, in which researchers interviewed households across Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal about migration patterns.

They conducted hundreds of surveys to identify how households are adapting to the changing climate and grouped responses into a series of “pathways” describing the impacts of rural-to-urban migration on their livelihoods. 

Dr Binaya Pasakhala and Dr Sabarnee Tuladhar from the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development and Halvard Buhaug Peace Research Institute Oslo answering questions in a panel discussion. Credit: Hemant Kumar from the IIHS Media Lab.

For example, Tuladhar noted that in Bhutan, there is a huge emphasis on education, which has “changed the aspirations of the community – especially the youth”. This drives “huge depopulation” from rural areas as young, educated people migrate to urban areas or internationally, she said. 

This mass movement into the cities provides opportunities for young people. It also provides money for the families back home – a type of finance known as remittances.

However, it also “weakened resilience” in the villages through “gungtong” – a phrase which translates literally to “empty houses”.

However, they also described the case of Nepal’s Baragon mountain community, where remittances from people who moved to urban centres has allowed communities in the villages to shift livelihoods away from subsidence farming towards commercialised farming and tourism. In this case, “migration has actually strengthened the resilience of the community”, Tuladhar said.

Prof Nitya Rao is a researcher in gender and development at the University of East Anglia (UEA), also presented research funded by CLARE.

She told the conference that when men are forced to leave for work, due to a lack of other options, a lot of their earnings go towards “survival” and less is saved. On the other hand, “mixed migration” – such as the movement of a father and son  – is often “aspirational”. It typically yields higher remittances and improves adaptive capacity back home, according to Rao.

Speaking to Carbon Brief, Rao argued that in order to “make migration a case of adaptation and not just survival in the short term”, destination cities need to do more to welcome migrants.

Prof Nitya Rao addressing conference attendees. Credit: Hemant Kumar from the IIHS Media Lab.

Dr Maria Franco Gavonel, a lecturer at the University of York and Prof Mumuni Abu, a senior lecturer from the University of Ghana, explored the concept of “social tipping points” in migration decision-making. 

They suggested that as a drought intensifies, there may be a threshold at which households decide to leave. The authors compared drought indices to immigration patterns across communities in Ghana, Mali, Kenya and Ethiopia, but did not find evidence of a social tipping point.

This could be because households anticipate severe droughts and leave before they hit, the speakers suggested. They also noted that there are many government-led policy responses to drought that could affect a household’s decision to stay or leave. 

For example, Kenya has a livestock-insurance policy to help families who lose animals during drought. Similarly the African Union uses satellite data to assess the severity of droughts and provide compensation to affected households.

In the final session of the conference, Dr Kasia Paprocki, an associate professor of environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science, provided a counterpoint to the idea that the vast majority of villagers want to abandon farming and move to the city.

She argued that people are often displaced from rural communities and unable to live farming lifestyles, even if they want to, adding:

“I have found that agrarian dispossession is being intensified through development interventions that are today being referred to as climate change adaptation.”

She argued for the need to “reorganise economies” to enable people to stay “if they would like to”, adding:

“Climate change adaptation and climate migration without meaningful agrarian reform will not produce climate justice.”

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Immobility and relocation

Movement from rural to urban areas was not the only migration pattern discussed in the conference. Experts also discussed movement patterns including planned relocation and immobility. 

The graphic below – adapted from the 2021 Groundswell report and originally published in Carbon Brief’s 2024 explainer on climate-driven migration – shows different categories of mobility and immobility due to climate change.

Different categories of human mobility and immobility due to climate change. Source: Adapted from the Groundswell report (2021).

Dr Roman Hoffmann from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis’s migration and sustainable development research group opened a session on “immobility” by presenting a way of defining and measuring the phenomenon.

He told Carbon Brief that immobility is “basically the absence of movement”, adding:

“The are different types of immobility. We have voluntary and involuntary immobility – and sometimes these different forms are not so clearly distinguishable, but there’s more sort of a continuum. Basically, the question is whether people are able to realise their aspirations to move or to stay.”

In his talk, Hoffman noted that media narratives around migration often focus on large movements of people, while the topic of immobility “falls between the cracks”.

Immobility is often seen as a problem experienced by the poorest and most vulnerable members of society – for example, because people cannot find or afford the resources they need, such as food or transportation, because they are not healthy enough to move or because they do not have the social network they require to make such a big change.

However, Dr Joyce Soo from the Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies, explained that there are also instances when “wealth enables immobility”. 

Soo explained that in coastal regions of Sweden that are exposed to extreme events, many residents there choose to stay, as there is “strong trust in government protection”, such as coastal defences. She explained that in this instance “immobility is linked to identity and status”.

A separate session at the conference focused on planned relocation – the organised movement of a group of people away from a site that is highly vulnerable to climate extremes. 

Dr Ricardo Safra de Campos, a senior lecturer in human geography at the University of Exeter, told the delegates that planned relocation is “arguably the most controversial aspect of mobility as a response to climate change” and is usually implemented when “all other forms of in-situ adaptation have failed”.

Safra de Campos and Nihal Ranjit, a senior research associate at IIHS, worked with a team of researchers to interview people who underwent planned relocation programmes in India and Bangladesh. 

They told delegates that planned relocation is often implemented when people feel unsafe – for example due to climate extremes – resulting in an “erosion of habitability”.

However, Ranjit explained “safety alone doesn’t make relocation successful”. He argued that the most important aspect of planned relocation is to ensure that migrants do not lose their livelihoods.

He presented the example of Ramayapatnam – a fishing village in India where houses were slowly being lost to coastal erosion. Ranjit explained that a planned relocation programme was set up to move people away from the coast, but that many people refused to move, as doing so would mean losing their only means of earning money. 

He also noted the many Indian citizens hold a deep mistrust of the government and question the authorities’ intentions.

Relocation must be “rights-based, participatory, livelihood-centred and attentive to culture, community and long-term wellbeing”, Ranjit said.

Meanwhile, Dr Annah Pigott-McKellar, a human geographer at the Queensland University of Technology, compared two case studies of relocation in Australia. 

When devastating flash floods hit Queensland in January 2011, a relocation programme led by the local government was set up to move people. The first houses were built within a year, and people were moved in “extremely fast”, Pigott-McKellar said. She explained that the goal was to keep the town together and “keep some level of social continuity”.

Conference attendees asking questions to the panel. Credit: Hemant Kumar from the IIHS Media Lab.

Conversely, when northern New South Wales faced severe flooding in 2022, the response was slow, according to Pigott-McKellar. She explained that different members of the community were offered varying levels of assistance by the state. For example, some households offered buybacks for their lost properties, while others were not. 

The result was a “fragmented and dispersed mobility pathway” that saw the community split up and mistrust in the government grow. 

Pigott-McKellar emphasised the importance of follow-through and continuity in relocation, stating:

“Relocation isn’t a moment in time. It is a process that unfolds over months or years”.

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Legal pathways

Most human migration happens within borders. However, conference delegates also discussed cases in which people move to other countries, with a focus on the possible legal pathways.

Prof Jon Barnett, professor in the school of geography, Earth and atmospheric sciences at the University of Melbourne, explained migration patterns in the south Pacific islands.

He told delegates that climate change is causing “significant social impacts” across the islands, adding:

“While we can’t say that climate change is a major factor in migration decisions…there is a “fingerprint of climate change in [all] migration decisions.”

Barnett outlined legal migration routes for Pacific islanders, such as Fiji’s climate relocation trust fund, which has already had more than 2,000 requests, or seasonal worker schemes to New Zealand, which have already issued 137,000 visas.

However, he noted that there is a “massive burden” for the women who stay on the Pacific islands when their husbands leave. He explained that not only do women substitute for the labour of the men, but climate change can also amplify their workload by making farming more difficult and illnesses more widespread. 

He concluded:

“Migration cannot be the only adaptation strategy we offer to the Pacific Islands. It’s got to be one strategy in the portfolio.”

Speaking separately to Carbon Brief, he said:

“As climate change amplifies pressures on people’s livelihoods, we may end up with a whole series of transnational populations that are kind of constantly in churn – where they’re not just living on the island, but also in Australia, New Zealand, the US. 

“That’s not necessarily a bad thing, I think, so long as people still have a right to return to their islands and can do so – and are making informed choices…to manage their climate risk.”

Demographer Prof Raya Muttarak, from the University of Bologna, told delegates that Italy is the only EU country with explicit legislation for climate-related protection. 

This six-month residence permit was introduced in 2018, for people who are found to have faced a “contingent and exceptional calamity”. However, she noted that there are flaws in the evidence base for making these claims, which can make it difficult for people to obtain the permits.

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Changing narratives 

Many speakers discussed the framing of climate change and migration in their talks. There was also a workshop on how to develop and promote “new narratives” around migration as an adaptation response to a changing climate on the first day of the conference.

Workshop on “new narratives”. Credit: Hemant Kumar from the IIHS Media Lab.

Dr Reetika Subramanian, a senior research associate at UEA who helped to organise the conference, told Carbon Brief that many media narratives around migration are “alarmist” and “crisis-based”, with a focus on people from poorer countries illegally entering wealthier countries.

However, explained that the conference convenors wanted to begin work on developing a new framing for migration – both in response to climate change and more generally – focusing on its “adaptive aspects”.

Dr Benoy Peter, the executive director of the Centre for Migration and Inclusive Development, told Carbon Brief that “far right” media and politics often “leverage” migration to present a negative framing.

However, he said that he sees migration as a “solution”, describing it as the “fastest way for intergenerational upward social mobility for people from socially and economically disadvantaged populations”. 

Prof Kerilyn Schewel, assistant professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, told Carbon Brief that the migration community has “moved beyond a ‘push factor’ narrative – that climate change is coming and uprooting communities – to a more nuanced perspective that recognises that people are already moving for all kinds of reasons”.

She said the new “research frontier” is “seeing how environmental factors intersect with these other social or developmental outcomes”, such as education.

Liby Johnson, the executive director of development organisation Gram Vikas, told the conference his reason for hope:

Attendees of the “mobility in adaptation to climate change” conference. Credit: Hemant Kumar from the IIHS Media Lab.

“Communities are figuring this out. They are not rejecting mobility – they are asking for mobility that is safer, fairer and more dignified. Communities affected by climate uncertainty are not simply enduring crises – they are actively using mobility to diversify risk, protect dignity and build better futures.”

Revi, from the IIHS, told Carbon Brief:

“The future of mobility is much more certain than the climate futures are. People have been mobile for a very long time. That’s been an important part of the transformation of societies and economies for centuries…Mobility is part of the solution. It is not the full solution, but it’s part of the solution. People are voting with their feet and with their aspirations to make a change.”

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One year ago, hundreds of Xinka People gathered in Guatemala City’s central park to announce their decision to deny consent for Pan American Silver’s Escobal mine in their territory. 

The announcement was the culmination of a more than eight-year long consultation process ordered by Guatemala’s Supreme Court in 2017. The consultation has been led by the Guatemalan Ministry of Energy and Mines, and according to the company’s website, the company “fully respect(s) this process.” 

While administrative aspects of the consultation are still ongoing, the Xinka People’s decision marked an important milestone in the process, making it impossible for Pan American Silver to re-open the mine and respect its commitments to human rights and Indigenous People’s rights. 

Silence from Pan American Silver

Pan American Silver has still not publicly recognized or adequately disclosed the Xinka Peoples’ decision to deny consent. It has not explained how the decision will impact its investment or the financial costs of adequately closing the Escobal mine. 

Saying One Thing, Doing Another

That silence is inconsistent with the company’s Global Human Rights Policy, which states that it will “recognize and respect cultural values, beliefs and traditions of people in the countries and communities in which we operate and the rights of indigenous peoples.” 

The Xinka People’s May 2025 decision is the culmination of a rigorous process that included in-depth information gathering and analysis of the environmental and cultural impacts of the mine by Xinka authorities with the support of technical experts. 

The company’s Global Human Rights Policy also includes a commitment to “act with transparency and avoid knowingly being complicit in activities that cause, or are likely to cause, adverse human rights impacts.” This is important given the Escobal mine has been marred in controversy and marked by violence. The mine was the subject of a civil suit filed in British Columbia by shooting victims against the previous mine owner. 

Throughout the consultation process, Xinka and other community leaders have pointed to Pan American’s community engagement programs and communication efforts, like mine visits and social media campaigns, as a problem. They said these public relations efforts spread misinformation and undermined the possibility of a good faith process. And yet the company persists with these types of community relations activities. 

Strong Opposition to the Mine

The widespread opposition to this mine since 2011 is well documented. On more than 16 occasions in the last 15 years, Xinka people and other local residents have voted overwhelmingly against the mine in municipal and community level referendums. 

There is also an around-the-clock encampment that has remained in the town of Casillas, 15 km from the mine, for nearly nine years to monitor mine-related traffic. This enables the community to make sure the company did not resume mining.

Bringing the Message Home to Pan American Silver

Xinka leaders and allies have brought the message to Pan American Silver’s home country of Canada. On May 4, Canadian Member of Parliament and Green Party leader, Elizabeth May,  formally tabled a petition in the House of Commons demanding respect for the Xinka People’s decision. With over 700 signatures from 12 provinces across the country, the petition urges the Government of Canada to reaffirm the Xinka People’s right to free, prior and informed consent and self-determination, and to support the safety and security of Xinka defenders. 

The Canadian government has 45 days from the tabling of the petition to respond. The petition also urges Pan American Silver and Guatemalan authorities to respect the results of the consultation. In November 2025, concerned citizens in Vancouver delivered another petition with over 6,000 signatures to Pan American Silver’s office, demanding respect for Xinka People’s self-determination. This petition was the culmination of the second visit of Xinka leaders to Canada in 2025, to demand the company respect their decision in the consultation process. 

Standing in Solidarity

Earthworks is proud to amplify the decision of the Xinka People, to reinforce their efforts, and to stand in solidarity with the larger movement in Guatemala that is defending land, water and the right to a clean and healthy environment. 

Like Indigenous Peoples everywhere, the Xinka People have a right to decide their own future. They have a right to say yes, yes with conditions, or no to mining. Now that the Xinka People have formally denied consent for the Escobal Mine, we continue to join partners in Canada, Guatemala, and around the globe who are lifting up their urgent message.

We know Pan American Silver can hear us. The question is — will they take action? 

The post One Year Later, We’re Still Waiting for Pan American Silver to Acknowledge the Xinka People’s Decision appeared first on Earthworks.

De la extracción a la regeneración: hacia transiciones justas para las personas y el planeta YLNM Documento de posición, 2025 Resumen: qué significa una transición justa para YLNM

Una transición justa no consiste en sustituir los combustibles fósiles por minerales para la transición. Se trata de transformar el sistema que ha hecho que la extracción parezca inevitable. 

Para Sí a la Vida No a la Minería, una transición verdaderamente justa debe ser popular e inclusiva. Debe basarse en el derecho a decir no y en el derecho a elegir otras formas de vida no extractivas. Para que la transición sea justa se debe centrar en la soberanía indígena, la autodeterminación comunitaria y los derechos de la naturaleza. Esto incluye la promoción de alternativas a la minería y al extractivismo, así como el impulso de nuevos paradigmas de justicia global que restablezcan el equilibrio entre los pueblos y la Tierra. Porque no podemos resolver la crisis climática  con más minería, pero sí podemos construir otros futuros post-extractivos que sustenten la vida con dignidad para todas las personas y los derechos inherentes de la Naturaleza a existir, prosperar y regenerarse en todas partes.

CONTENTS

1. Introducción

2. Los discursos sobre la transición verde: una falsa dicotomía

– La apropiación del mercado de la acción climática por parte de la industria minera
– Los «minerales de transición» no son lo mismo que los «minerales críticos»

3. Sí a la vida: Sí a las transformaciones basadas en la justicia y el cuidado

– ¿Qué entendemos por una verdadera transición justa?
– El derecho a decir que no

– Alternativas al crecimiento
– Derechos de la naturaleza
– Buen Vivir

4. Conclusión: Hacia transiciones justas para las personas y la naturaleza

1. Introducción

Treinta años después de la primera Conferencia de las Partes (COP) de la Convención Marco de las Naciones Unidas sobre el Cambio Climático (CMNUCC), y treinta y tres desde la Cumbre de la Tierra celebrada en Río de Janeiro, Brasil, las emisiones globales de gases de efecto invernadero a la atmósfera siguen aumentando, y la sexta extinción masiva de especies continúa acelerando en un vertiginoso ritmo. Cada vez hay más indicios que confirman la posibilidad de superar el alarmante umbral de 1,5 °C de calentamiento global, y de que podríamos estar cerca, o incluso haber superado, puntos de inflexión planetarios que antes se consideraban remotos o lejanos.

En todo el mundo, en estos tiempos, los pueblos indígenas y las comunidades de base están liderando soluciones, campañas y movimientos alternativos para hacer frente a la crisis climática. 

En vez de ser reconocidas, las comunidades de base suelen ser blanco de ataques desproporcionados por parte de quienes se benefician a través del extractivismo y buscan mantener el ‘status quo’. Los movimientos sociales y socioambientales de base se han considerado durante mucho tiempo como una amenaza para las estructuras de poder capitalistas y colonialistas. Se utilizan herramientas neoliberales para justificar la opresión estatal en nombre de la protección de la inversión y el crecimiento económico. Tanto en el norte como en el sur global, los defensores indígenas y socioambientales son señalados y/o acusados como «terroristas» por los gobiernos estatales y las empresas, así como también son amenazados con acciones legales por oponerse a los proyectos extractivos.

Las organizaciones multilaterales mundiales y los marcos internacionales de mitigación del cambio climático no abordan las violaciones de los derechos humanos cometidas en nombre de la transición hacia las energías «verdes» debido a una dinámica de poder arraigada y globalizada que favorece al norte global industrializado y a sus intereses económicos. La creación de «zonas de sacrificio» se considera un efecto secundario aceptable del modelo empresarial a gran escala de mitigación del cambio climático, donde las personas que defienden sus tierras son vistas como obstáculos para los Estados y las empresas que desean beneficiarse del vasto sistema lucrativo que es el mercado de las energías  «verdes».

Esta profunda desigualdad de poder es evidente en las diversas cumbres anuales de la COP. En la reciente COP30 celebrada en Belém, Brasil, a los pueblos indígenas solo se les concedió una presencia simbólica en el interior, mientras que el escenario estaba dominado por los defensores del mercado verde y los grupos de presión de los combustibles fósiles. En el exterior, los defensores de la tierra que protestaban en busca de una verdadera justicia climática fueron repelidos por la policía militar. Mientras tanto, a los poderosos bancos y corporaciones transnacionales no solo se les concedió un lugar central para difundir su «greenwashing», sino que financiaron en gran medida el evento. Vale recordar que la tercera empresa minera más grande del mundo fue uno de los principales patrocinadores de la COP30, mientras que los organizadores del evento guardaron un silencio inquietante sobre el catastrófico historial de la empresa en materia de medio ambiente y derechos humanos, que incluye la muerte de 270 personas en el colapso de la presa de Brumadinho en Brasil en 2019 y de 19 personas en Mariana en 2015.

La COP30 celebrada en Belém en 2025 contó además con la mayor participación hasta la fecha de grupos de presión del sector de los combustibles fósiles, así como con una presencia desmesurada de empresas cómplices de la destrucción de la Amazonía o que la están destruyendo activamente. Es evidente que esto no representa el tipo de acción en favor de la justicia climática que el mundo necesita para hacer frente al calentamiento global descontrolado. 

En ese sentido, los movimientos de base y los defensores de la tierra tienen mucho trabajo por delante, ya que deben librar no solo luchas localizadas contra la minería y el extractivismo, sino también contra sus gobiernos (desde el nivel local hasta el nacional), los sistemas jurídicos, las empresas transnacionales, los acuerdos comerciales multilaterales y todo el sistema global del capitalismo neoliberal. Las comunidades más afectadas por la expansión minera en busca de «minerales de transición» son, en su mayoría, aquellas que ya llevan mucho tiempo marginadas por el capitalismo y el colonialismo: las comunidades indígenas y las del Sur Global.

Debemos cuestionar esta narrativa dominante que presenta como inevitable la expansión de las actividades extractivas y el crecimiento económico en nombre del «desarrollo y el progreso». Una forma clave de lograrlo es garantizar que las comunidades del Sur Global y los pueblos indígenas sean los líderes de la acción climática y los que definan el discurso de la transición ecológica. Esto implica dar mayor visibilidad a las alternativas a la minería y al extractivismo, y potenciar los paradigmas pos-extractivos de justicia global.

2. Los discursos sobre la transición verde: una falsa dicotomía

Las pruebas son claras. Los fundamentos científicos que relacionan la emisión de dióxido de carbono con el calentamiento del planeta ya se establecieron en el siglo XIX. Éstos datos  están disponibles desde la década de los sesenta, y el consenso científico público sobre el calentamiento global se alcanzó hacia 1980. Ya en la década del cincuenta, algunas empresas eran muy conscientes de los posibles efectos de los combustibles fósiles en particular, a lo que respondieron con décadas de encubrimiento, negación y retrasos, que continúan hasta el día de hoy. Las grandes empresas y las entidades estatales no solo se han opuesto activamente y han bloqueado las medidas necesarias, sino que han aprovechado este tiempo para expandir sin descanso la extracción y llevar a la Tierra al borde del abismo. Mientras tanto, somos testigos de una sucesión cada vez mayor de «fenómenos meteorológicos extremos» —de hecho, fenómenos meteorológicos amplificados por el cambio climático— que atestiguan que ya nos encontramos en una crisis climática.

Conceptos y definiciones sobre el cambio climático

Es importante distinguir conceptualmente entre emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero (GEI) y emisiones de carbono  (CO₂). Las primeras se refieren al total de emisiones antropogénicas de gases a la atmósfera que contribuyen al calentamiento global (IPCC 2021). Actualmente, el 76 % de las emisiones globales de GEI son de dióxido de carbono. El gas de efecto invernadero con la segunda mayor concentración en la atmósfera es el metano, con un 19 % (C2ES). La producción de metano está relacionada con la ganadería, la producción de combustibles fósiles y los residuos, mientras que el CO₂ se libera al quemar combustibles fósiles y mediante el uso extractivo de los bosques y el suelo.

Las emisiones de CO₂ están relacionadas con la mayoría de los sectores más importantes de la sociedad moderna, entre los que se incluyen la producción de energía, el transporte, las tecnologías de la información y la defensa. Los sucesivos informes del IPCC han dejado claro que las emisiones antropogénicas de gases de efecto invernadero son el principal factor del calentamiento global y, por lo tanto, la mayor parte de los esfuerzos en materia de política climática se centran en reducir estas emisiones con el fin de mantener el calentamiento global por debajo del objetivo de 1,5 °C establecido en 2015 durante el Acuerdo de París.

Tanto históricamente como en la actualidad, la distribución desigual de las emisiones de carbono entre los países es abrumadora, y la brecha es aún mayor si se tiene en cuenta el nivel de ingresos. En 2023, China, Estados Unidos y la India representaron conjuntamente el 42,6 % de las emisiones mundiales. Los patrones de las emisiones acumuladas de carbono a lo largo de la historia coinciden en gran medida con las potencias coloniales e imperialistas, y solo la rápida expansión de China en el siglo XXI se ha acercado a las de Estados Unidos y los países de la UE. Aún más dramática es la distribución desigual de las emisiones por consumo en función de los ingresos, donde se estima que las emisiones de carbono del 1 % más rico equivalen a más del doble que las de la mitad más pobre de la humanidad. Los multimillonarios más ricos del mundo pueden emitir más carbono en 90 minutos que una persona media en toda su vida. Muchos de estos ultrarricos están presionando activamente o vendiendo sus propias «soluciones climáticas», mientras siguen emitiendo personalmente cantidades exorbitantes de carbono. La influencia indebida que muchas de estas personas ejercen sobre los gobiernos está quedando al descubierto.

En julio de 2025, la Corte Internacional de Justicia emitió un dictamen consultivo en el que se establece que los Estados no sólo están obligados a proteger el planeta de las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero, sino que también pueden ser considerados legalmente responsables si no lo hacen, lo que incluye denuncias por pérdidas y daños, así como indemnizaciones. 

Si bien es objetivamente cierto que necesitamos descarbonizar nuestra economía, hacerlo con el fin de defender y mantener el status quo de un reducido y privilegiado grupo, en lugar de hacerlo como un imperativo moral para cumplir los objetivos del Acuerdo de París es muy problemático. Nos encontramos ante una situación en la que el objetivo central de la descarbonización no es salvar el planeta para las generaciones futuras. El objetivo de las actuales estrategias hegemónicas de «transición» para alcanzar el cero neto es, ante todo, mantener el crecimiento económico y las condiciones para que prosperen las grandes empresas.

La mayoría de las negociaciones en las recientes cumbres de la COP y la financiación asociada se centran en soluciones tecnológicas y en el desarrollo de tecnologías con bajas emisiones de carbono, es decir, en la mitigación del cambio climático dentro del modelo de «seguir como hasta ahora». Esta es la vía preferida y más financiada por los Estados, los bancos y las empresas, y se considera la forma de acción climática de mayor prioridad. Por el contrario, se destina relativamente poca financiación internacional a la adaptación (medidas para gestionar el riesgo y facilitar el ajuste a los impactos climáticos actuales y futuros, como los fenómenos meteorológicos extremos, el aumento del nivel del mar y la inseguridad alimentaria). Tanto es así que, ¡El Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Medio Ambiente estima que la adaptación recibe entre 10 y 20 veces menos financiación de la necesaria! Aunque cuenta con el respaldo financiero, la vía de mitigación que se baraja no cuestiona el sistema económico y, de hecho, no hace más que reforzarlo al mercantilizar la acción climática.

Las narrativas dominantes sobre la acción climática se basan, por tanto, en la suposición de que el crecimiento económico y la expansión material son los principales objetivos sociales y de desarrollo. Estas suposiciones se fundamentan en modelos de escasez de recursos, es decir, los recursos que antes pertenecían a toda la población ahora deben ser acaparados y controlados por un sistema jerárquico en cuya cúspide se encuentran los más poderosos. Las narrativas de la llamada «transición verde» fueron creadas por instituciones con sede en el Norte Global para orientar el acaparamiento de los recursos globales finitos con el fin de mantener el crecimiento económico y los estilos de vida de los más ricos del mundo.

Esto, a su vez, ha dado lugar a la narrativa dominante actual de que necesitamos extraer grandes cantidades de los denominados «minerales críticos», como el litio, el cobre, el níquel, el cobalto y las tierras raras, para impulsar la transición hacia las cero emisiones netas de carbono. Esto ha desencadenado una fiebre extractiva en el sector minero por poner en marcha y ampliar proyectos.

Nos están haciendo creer que nos enfrentamos a una disyuntiva clara: combustibles fósiles o «minerales críticos». Más concretamente, resolver la crisis climática implica sustituir los combustibles fósiles por energías renovables, y para ello necesitamos extraer cada vez más minerales y «eliminar gradualmente» los combustibles fósiles. En pocas palabras: para salvar el planeta, ya devastado por siglos de explotación, tenemos que sacrificar más comunidades y más naturaleza.

Actualmente nos encontramos en un máximo histórico de consumo de combustibles fósiles (1). Mientras tanto, y al amparo de esta falsa narrativa sobre la acción climática, la extracción de metales y minerales también ha ido aumentando continuamente, incluso a un ritmo más rápido que el de los combustibles fósiles. Las empresas dedicadas a la extracción y el procesamiento de combustibles fósiles y minerales siguen obteniendo enormes beneficios a pesar de la crisis climática y, de hecho, gracias a ella (2). Por lo tanto, podemos ver que la extracción de minerales para la «transición hacia la energía verde» no está sustituyendo a los combustibles fósiles; de hecho, es un complemento: combustibles fósiles más energía renovable.

Esto se puede observar al examinar la lista de los mayores emisores de gases de efecto invernadero (3). A pesar de que el mayor porcentaje de las emisiones de carbono excedentes corresponde a los grandes productores de petróleo y gas, muchos de los puestos, entre los 100 principales emisores acumulados, los ocupan empresas consideradas de extracción de metales y minerales debido a su explotación del carbón (por ejemplo, Anglo American, Rio Tinto, Vale, Glencore). Mientras tanto, la mayoría de estas empresas siguen operando a pleno rendimiento y se proclaman «esenciales» para la transición. 

Aún más llamativo es que las cadenas de suministro de las grandes empresas metalúrgicas y mineras también son la causa de importantes emisiones debido a materiales cuya extracción y procesamiento consumen mucha energía, como el hierro, el cobre, el litio, el aluminio/bauxita, etc. Y estos análisis no tienen en cuenta la plétora de otros impactos ambientales y comunitarios asociados a la minería. Las grandes empresas mineras han sido y siguen siendo «líderes» en el colapso climático, en contraposición a la acción climática, que es lo que sus campañas de relaciones públicas quieren hacernos creer.

 

La apropiación del mercado de la acción climática por parte de la industria minera

La idea de que la minería es esencial para la acción climática es una mentira difundida sobre todo por las empresas y el sector que las respalda. La expansión de la minería en nombre de la «transición ecológica» no está motivada, en realidad, por el altruismo ni por una preocupación genuina por las personas y el medio ambiente, sino por factores de mercado, concretamente el aumento del valor de los minerales clave y la competencia geopolítica por el control de las cadenas de suministro. 

La mayoría de los metales clave necesarios para la electrificación de la producción energética (por ejemplo, el litio, el cobre, el níquel, el cobalto y las tierras raras —los llamados «metales de batería» para vehículos eléctricos)— han experimentado rápidas subidas en el precio de sus acciones en los últimos años. La minería de la «transición verde» es lucrativa, y esto ha alimentado tácticas generalizadas de «greenwashing» en la industria. A medida que las empresas buscan cadenas de suministro e inversores en las industrias de energía verde, sus sitios web se llenan de declaraciones grandilocuentes que promueven su compromiso con el abastecimiento de minerales para soluciones de energía verde. Las empresas transnacionales de seguros como BlackRock buscan ahora activamente inversiones en cadenas de suministro de energía verde, mientras que grandes empresas mineras como Rio Tinto y BHP se han reinventado a sí mismas como productores clave de minerales de «transición» de alto valor, como el litio y el cobre.

Las campañas de relaciones públicas de las empresas mineras suelen centrarse en los criterios «medioambientales, sociales y de gobernanza» (ESG) que, lejos de orientar la conducta de las empresas sobre el terreno, tienden a servir como herramientas de «greenwashing» para atraer a los inversores y favorecer agendas políticas. Si bien existen algunos esfuerzos simbólicos por parte de la industria para supervisar los impactos ambientales y sociales en las cadenas de suministro de minerales, estos han dado lugar a iniciativas como los sistemas de «estándares de certificación» que, lejos de aumentar la diligencia debida, pueden justificar aún más el lavado verde de las empresas al tiempo que ocultan sus actividades injustas y destructivas a la vista del público. Además, las políticas gubernamentales que se pusieron en marcha para acompañar la transición energética se están debilitando y revirtiendo, en consonancia con las tendencias de reducción de las competencias estatales (4).

Los «minerales de transición» no son lo mismo que los «minerales críticos»

El término «minerales críticos» se confunde a menudo con «minerales de transición», y ambos se utilizan indistintamente en los medios de comunicación. Sin embargo, existe una diferencia: «Minerales de transición» se refiere específicamente a los minerales utilizados en tecnologías renovables, incluidos los vehículos eléctricos. Por su parte, «minerales críticos» es un término más amplio que hace referencia a los minerales a los que los gobiernos o las instituciones multilaterales dan prioridad debido a su uso en tecnologías y en otros sectores que tienen una importancia económica clave en un lugar determinado, en un momento determinado.

Solo una cantidad limitada de «minerales críticos» se destina a las denominadas tecnologías bajas en carbono. Más de la mitad de los minerales considerados críticos en el Reino Unido «no desempeñan un papel importante» en la transición energética, mientras que uno de cada cinco «no desempeña ningún papel» ni siquiera en el escenario de cero emisiones netas de la AIE; de hecho, no se necesita ninguna actividad minera adicional para mantener el calentamiento del planeta por debajo de 1,5 °C.

Las estrategias y políticas gubernamentales sobre «minerales críticos» están dando cada vez más prioridad a los minerales destinados a la defensa y la seguridad nacional —en otras palabras, a la guerra— frente a las medidas climáticas reales. El litio, el cobalto, el níquel y los metales de tierras raras se utilizan en la fabricación de armas, incluidos misiles, submarinos y aviones de combate. Esto supone no solo devastación y muerte para las poblaciones afectadas por guerras y genocidios, sino también enormes beneficios para la industria armamentística mundial. En 2023, la industria armamentística obtuvo 632 000 millones de dólares estadounidenses de ganancia, sin contar el beneficio económico que obtuvo con el genocidio en Gaza, los conflictos en Ucrania, Yemen, Sudán, la República Democrática del Congo y otros lugares, así como el aumento impulsado por Trump para que los países de la OTAN puedan elevar su porcentaje de gasto del PIB en «defensa y seguridad» al 5 %.

 

Para más información, consulte el documento de posición de YLNM sobre la minería y la militarización.

 

En resumen, la minería no es una medida contra el cambio climático, la extracción de minerales no sustituye a los combustibles fósiles y los minerales extraídos no se destinan, en su mayoría, a tecnologías de energía renovable, sino a armas de guerra y otras iniciativas lucrativas del sistema capitalista. El resultado de esta dinámica es el desempoderamiento, e incluso el silenciamiento, de las voces de las comunidades que dicen «No» a los proyectos mineros debido a los impactos y riesgos que las actividades extractivas tienen sobre sus tierras, el agua, la salud y los medios de vida.

 

3. Sí a la vida: Sí a las transformaciones basadas en la justicia y el cuidado ¿Qué entendemos por una verdadera transición justa?

Las Naciones Unidas definen la transición justa como un marco «para garantizar que nadie se quede atrás en el cambio hacia una economía baja en carbono» (UNEPFI), centrándose principalmente en la protección de los trabajadores y las comunidades afectadas por la transición que supone el abandono de los combustibles fósiles. Si bien este enfoque reconoce la necesidad de la protección social y la creación de empleo, pasa por alto una verdad fundamental: la crisis a la que nos enfrentamos no es simplemente una crisis energética, sino de extracción y explotación. Una transición justa no puede limitarse a sustituir un conjunto de industrias extractivas por otro —por ejemplo, cambiar los coches de combustibles fósiles por motores eléctricos—. La definición anterior de «transición justa» acaba, de hecho, perpetuando la lógica colonial del extractivismo verde, justificando la apropiación de tierras indígenas, el desplazamiento de comunidades, el envenenamiento del agua y la erosión de la biodiversidad en nombre del progreso económico.

Transiciones justas

Recordamos que el concepto de «transición justa» surgió del movimiento sindical en la década del ochenta, con el objetivo de proteger el bienestar y la salud a largo plazo de los trabajadores y sus comunidades. Desde entonces, y mucho antes de su incorporación a las políticas climáticas y gubernamentales, ha sido objeto de debate, revisión y ampliación continua por parte de diversos movimientos sociales. Al margen de la reunión de la COP30 celebrada en Belém do Pará en noviembre de 2025, varias reuniones dieron forma a sus propios llamamientos globales sobre cómo debería ser una transición justa.

La Cumbrea de los Pueblos (Cúpula dos Povos) reunió a cientos de movimientos locales, nacionales e internacionales, pueblos indígenas y campesinos, y activistas socioambientales, que se unieron en una declaración a favor de una «transición energética justa, popular e inclusiva, con soberanía, protección y reparación para los territorios». Una campaña iniciada y liderada por las organizaciones y pueblos indígenas de la Amazonía brasileña y de otros países de la cuenca así como de todo el mundo reclamó una «transición justa y soberana que anteponga la vida al lucro». La Vía Campesina, en su Manifiesto para la COP30, situó la agroecología campesina y la soberanía alimentaria en el centro de la transición justa, afirmando que los países del Sur Global tienen derecho a una transición en sus propios términos.  En la reunión del Foro Social Temático sobre Minería y Economía Extractiva (TSF) celebrada en Belém –en la que YLNM participó como aliada y miembro– se lanzó un llamamiento para rechazar las falsas soluciones «verdes» y construir juntos una profunda transformación socioecológica y sistémica que supere el extractivismo en todas sus formas.

«Sí a la vida, no a la minería» se hace eco y se suma a estos llamamientos en favor de una transición que debe ser popular, inclusiva y verdaderamente justa. Esto significa una transición configurada por los pueblos y las comunidades, y no impuesta a estos. Debe centrarse en el derecho a decir «no» a los proyectos destructivos y en el derecho a la autodeterminación sobre los territorios, los medios de subsistencia y los modos de vida. Una transición justa también debe respetar los derechos de la naturaleza, reconociendo que los ecosistemas no son bancos de recursos para uso humano, sino parientes vivos cuyo bienestar determina el nuestro.

El derecho a decir que no

Las comunidades deciden decir «no» a la minería por muchas razones; consulte nuestro documento de posición «Por qué decimos NO a la minería» para obtener más detalles y ejemplos. Todas las comunidades tienen derecho a decir «no» a la minería. Todas las comunidades tienen derecho a defender sus territorios, sus medios de vida y el bienestar de las personas y de la tierra. 

Nos solidarizamos con las comunidades locales que se resisten al extractivismo y defendemos su derecho a decidir sobre todas las cuestiones que afectan a sus tierras, aguas y futuro. Esto incluye la autonomía, la autodeterminación y la soberanía territorial de los pueblos indígenas de todo el mundo, y reafirmamos el derecho de todas las comunidades a proteger y cuidar sus territorios de acuerdo con sus propios valores y sistemas de conocimiento.

Alternativas al crecimiento

Uno de los elementos fundamentales de la crisis socioambiental que se ha señalado es la insistencia del capitalismo en un crecimiento económico desenfrenado. El concepto del Producto Interior Bruto (PIB) como motor clave del «desarrollo» económico y político ha sido criticado por generaciones de activistas y académicos, en particular por aquellos arraigados en el Sur Global. En el Sexto Informe de Evaluación del IPCC se dedica un espacio a debatir sobre economías alternativas poscrecimiento, y hasta la Agencia Europea de Medio Ambiente ha tomado nota de ello. Estos giros se producen tras una importante investigación que critica la idea de «desvincular» el crecimiento de los impactos ambientales negativos, es decir, el «crecimiento verde».

Partiendo del legado de la crítica al desarrollo y de la economía ecofeminista, han ido surgiendo un número cada vez mayor de propuestas como el decrecimiento, el poscrecimiento y el posdesarrollo. El debate sobre el decrecimiento, en particular, es amplio y variado, e incorpora una gran diversidad de estrategias y propuestas; podría decirse que se trata de un espacio fundamental para el debate y la coordinación entre los movimientos del Sur y del Norte globales. Esto es significativo, ya que el concepto de «decrecimiento» se basa en una perspectiva internacionalista centrada en la justicia y pone especial de relieve la necesidad de que las regiones y clases más prósperas del mundo reduzcan su (sobre)consumo y aborden el «intercambio ecológico desigual» (extracción) de materiales y mano de obra de las regiones más pobres del mundo.  Dado que el concepto de decrecimiento supone un claro desafío a la lógica económica hegemónica del Norte Global, se mantiene prácticamente ausente de los debates políticos, tanto locales como internacionales, en torno a la mitigación y la adaptación al cambio climático, allí donde estos existen. Mientras tanto, los movimientos de base toman la iniciativa en su promoción.

Lamentablemente, el movimiento por el decrecimiento se ha enfrentado a críticas por parte de la corriente dominante, que sostiene que el concepto suena negativo o evoca la privación. Se trata, sin duda, de un malentendido o incluso de una interpretación errónea deliberada; sin embargo, para contrarrestar esto, han surgido conceptos que plantean una economía alternativa en términos más explícitamente positivos. Por ejemplo, la Wellbeing Economy Alliance define la economía del bienestar como aquella que «sitúa nuestras necesidades humanas y planetarias en el centro de sus actividades, garantizando que todas estas necesidades se satisfagan por igual, de forma predeterminada». El Gobierno escocés ha sido un defensor de este tipo de economía y ha elaborado un conjunto de herramientas para la economía del bienestar. 

La Construcción de Riqueza Comunitaria (CWB) es otro concepto que se basa en instituciones arraigadas localmente (por ejemplo, el servicio de salud) y fomenta la contratación de pequeñas empresas y cooperativas locales, manteniendo la riqueza circulando dentro de la economía local. El empleo justo y los mercados laborales justos, así como la propiedad plural de la economía y las finanzas justas, son algunos de los principios de la CWB. Actualmente se está implementando a nivel local y regional en varios continentes, principalmente en el Norte Global.

La idea de la economía del “donut”, con un «suelo social» y un «techo ecológico», fue desarrollada por primera vez por Kate Raworth. El suelo garantiza que se satisfagan las necesidades de todas las personas, mientras que  el techo asegura que no sobrepasemos  ecológicos ni desestabilicemos los sistemas que sustentan la vida en la Tierra. La economía del “donut” ha adquirido una gran influencia gracias a su representación simplificada de un mundo socialmente justo y ecológicamente sostenible; sin embargo, el concepto  ha sido ampliamente desarrollado y profundizado desde entonces. Un principio particularmente relevante para nuestro tema es: aspirar a prosperar en lugar de crecer.

Nunca se insistirá lo suficiente en que el decrecimiento pone de manifiesto que los puntos de partida para las transiciones justas son profundamente desiguales. Siglos de expoliación del trabajo, los recursos y las vidas han empobrecido y subordinado a muchas regiones del Sur Global. Por ello, la transferencia financiera y tecnológica es clave para cualquier camino basado en la justicia. Por ejemplo, basándose en décadas de trabajo sobre la «deuda ecológica», el movimiento Deuda por el Clima exige la cancelación de la deuda ilegítima en el Sur Global como una condición esencial para un futuro justo y sostenible. Incluso a nivel de la CMNUCC, gracias al liderazgo de la Alianza de Pequeños Estados Insulares, se ha establecido un Fondo para Pérdidas y Daños. Aunque actualmente su alcance financiero es bastante limitado, representa un reconocimiento formal y moral de la deuda de las partes más ricas del mundo.

Derechos de la naturaleza 

El movimiento por los Derechos de la Naturaleza se basa en el reconocimiento de que la Naturaleza es «una comunidad viva e indivisible de seres interrelacionados e interdependientes con derechos inherentes» (Barlow 2024). El concepto atrajo la atención mundial en 2008, cuando Ecuador definió en su Constitución a la naturaleza como un ser vivo (Pachamama) con derechos a «existir, persistir y prosperar». A pesar de los retos, las innovadoras leyes de Ecuador se han aplicado con éxito en varios casos, siendo quizás el más trascendental una sentencia del Tribunal Constitucional de 2021 que prohibió a una empresa minera canadiense operar en la reserva forestal de Los Cedros tras una intensa campaña local e internacional (Sí a la Vida, No a la Minería, 2025). El caso de Los Cedros fue el primero en Ecuador en impugnar las leyes constitucionales relativas al derecho a la protección jurídica de las empresas y las inversiones. En un nivel más profundo, la victoria judicial a favor del bosque afirma que la naturaleza tiene un valor intrínseco, independientemente de si puede monetizarse o no.

El movimiento por los Derechos de la Naturaleza se extiende actualmente por 40 países y defiende visiones y herramientas que cuestionan la hegemonía del poder extractivo colonial tanto en el Sur como en el Norte Global. En Ecuador, la autoridad indígena kichwa de Sarayaku ha formalizado la declaración Kawsak Sacha (Bosque Viviente), que define al bosque como una entidad viva unitaria con derechos (Kauffman et al., 2025). Esto se reconoce como un modelo fundamental de jurisprudencia ecológica que ha ayudado al pueblo sarayaku a defender sus tierras de la explotación petrolera y ha proporcionado herramientas para las luchas en otros lugares. Por su parte, en Australia, los conceptos de los Derechos de la Naturaleza están siendo replanteados por las Primeras Naciones con el fin de definir cómo podría ser una relación correcta con la Tierra para los colonos, y de respetar las leyes de los pueblos de las Primeras Naciones y su custodia ecológicamente sostenible de la tierra y el mar a lo largo de milenios (Australian Earth Laws Centre, 2025).

Los derechos de la naturaleza, junto con otras formas de jurisprudencia ecológica, como las leyes sobre ecocidio, se están convirtiendo en una parte integral de una transición justa. Según la Red de Mujeres por el Medio Ambiente y el Clima, «integrar los derechos de la naturaleza en la visión, la estructura y la práctica de una transición justa es fundamental para abordar las causas profundas de la crisis climática, rechazar las soluciones falsas y restablecer relaciones armoniosas con la Tierra» (WECAN, 2025).

En diciembre de 2022, los derechos de la naturaleza se incluyeron en el Marco Mundial para la Diversidad Biológica de Kunming-Montreal, un acuerdo internacional adoptado para detener y revertir la pérdida de biodiversidad (GBF, 2022). En mayo de 2025, se incorporaron en un dictamen consultivo de la Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos sobre el cambio climático y los derechos humanos, solicitado por Colombia y Chile —países en los que tanto la crisis climática como la respuesta industrial de la «transición verde» han afectado de manera desproporcionada a los pueblos indígenas en particular—. En ella se afirma: «El reconocimiento del derecho de la naturaleza a mantener sus procesos ecológicos esenciales contribuye a la consolidación de un modelo de desarrollo verdaderamente sostenible que respete los límites planetarios y garantice la disponibilidad de recursos vitales para las generaciones presentes y futuras».

En la COP30, la Alianza Global por los Derechos de la Naturaleza (GARN) celebró la tercera sesión de su 6º Tribunal Internacional, que concluyó con la presentación del documento de políticas, Un nuevo compromiso con la Madre Naturaleza, en el que se reclama justicia para la Tierra y sus defensores. Esto siguió a un evento celebrado en 2024 en Toronto bajo el lema Los impactos de la minería y la era pos-extractiva, que tuvo lugar al mismo tiempo que la gran feria comercial de la Asociación de Prospectores y Desarrolladores de Canadá (PDAC). La yuxtaposición de eventos fue deliberada: para poner de relieve el daño causado por las empresas mineras canadienses, con el objetivo de desafiar la hegemonía que mantiene la impunidad de estas empresas y así trazar una hoja de ruta hacia una visión pos-extractiva (GARN, 2025).

Los derechos de la naturaleza en Europa: dos ejemplos de la red YLNM

Los Sperrins, Irlanda

En una isla cuyas principales amenazas ecológicas son el extractivismo (la minería y la explotación de canteras) y la agricultura industrial (que también puede entenderse como una forma de extractivismo), los defensores de la tierra y los protectores del agua comenzaron a ver el potencial de las leyes sobre los derechos de la naturaleza para hacer frente a estas amenazas de forma sistemática y a largo plazo, en lugar de tener que librar una batalla tras otra para mantener a las excavadoras alejadas de sus puertas. La creciente energía de un nuevo movimiento dio lugar a una oleada de mociones en los municipalidades y a una recomendación de la Asamblea Ciudadana para incluir los Derechos de la Naturaleza en la Constitución irlandesa. Sin embargo, también se dieron cuenta de que no podían esperar a que se adoptara oficialmente una nueva (o antigua) forma de ver el mundo, por lo que también comenzaron a declarar los derechos de sus biosferas locales. Un ejemplo de ello es la Declaración de los Derechos de las Comunidades y la Naturaleza de las montañas de Sperrin, una cordillera de ecosistemas y pueblos amenazados por la minería de oro. Así que, mientras siguen resistiendo, también trabajan para arraigar y hacer realidad el «dúchas», un concepto irlandés de pertenencia, o «conexión con la tierra». Es comunitario y ecológico, y apunta a una identidad moldeada por el lugar.

Las controvertidas ampliaciones mineras en Serbia

En Serbia, varias organizaciones están impugnando proyectos mineros y recurriendo al Convenio del Consejo de Europa sobre la conservación de la vida silvestre y los hábitats naturales de Europa (conocido como Convenio de Berna). Estas denuncias no solo tratan de recurrir a este mecanismo internacional para detener los proyectos mineros —dado que las vías legales son muy limitadas en el actual contexto jurídico-político de Serbia—, sino que también solicitan que se incorporen los Derechos de la Naturaleza al Convenio de Berna, basándose en el hecho de que este ya reconoce el «valor intrínseco» de la flora y la fauna silvestres. Las denuncias afirman además que, debido a las deficiencias de otros marcos jurídicos, los Derechos de la Naturaleza son «necesarios» para proteger las especies y sus hábitats. La denuncia para proteger las montañas de Homolje de la minería de oro, presentada ante el Convenio de Berna, también se ha debatido como un caso en el Tribunal de la GARN, lo que ha dado lugar a un veredicto contra el Estado y la empresa por posible ecocidio y violación de los Derechos de la Naturaleza.

Estas iniciativas en Europa contrastan radicalmente con la evolución de las políticas. Desde hace ya varios años, la Comisión Europea viene tomando medidas para debilitar la normativa medioambiental con el fin de facilitar la expansión de la minería y la intensificación de la militarización, acelerando la concesión de permisos, aceptando revisar la directiva clave sobre el agua, flexibilizando la notificación de la contaminación y abriéndose a revisar la Directiva sobre aves y hábitats. Parece irrelevante cómo estas desregulaciones van a conciliarse con los compromisos en materia de biodiversidad global, protección del medio ambiente, derechos humanos fundamentales e incluso acción climática. Este «Pacto Verde» de la Unión Europea está dispuesta a sacrificar la naturaleza y las comunidades, tanto dentro del bloque como en el resto del mundo a través de acuerdos comerciales y asociaciones, a cambio de soluciones rápidas para la economía y la seguridad nacional.

Buen Vivir

El Buen Vivir, o Sumak Kawsay, es una filosofía indígena andina que propugna vivir en armonía con el mundo viviente. El Buen Vivir, o «vivir bien» (sumak kawsay en kichwa/quechua), es una filosofía indígena andina que propugna vivir en armonía con el mundo viviente. Otros pueblos tienen conceptos similares: Ñandereko, Küme Mongen, Suma Qamaña, Ubuntu, Swaraj, relación correcta.

El filósofo latinoamericano pos-extractivista Eduardo Gudynas describe el Buen Vivir como una postura radicalmente biocéntrica, que reconoce los valores intrínsecos del medio ambiente y desmonta el concepto fundamental de dualidad entre los seres humanos y la naturaleza que sustenta las economías extractivas. 

En América Latina, el Buen Vivir ha surgido de diversas formas en los movimientos indígenas, políticos y sociales de varios países, entre ellos Ecuador, Bolivia, Uruguay, Chile y Perú. Los principios del Buen Vivir han sido consagrados en las constituciones de Ecuador y Bolivia. En Bolivia, se trata de un marco ético arraigado en los conceptos indígenas aimaras de vida armoniosa. En Ecuador, el concepto se traduce en un conjunto de derechos constitucionales, que fueron incorporados a la Constitución de 2008 por una Asamblea Nacional en la que estaban representadas las naciones indígenas y los movimientos sociales de izquierda.

Podría decirse que las expresiones de las economías alternativas y los Derechos de la Naturaleza son formas modernas de expresar formas antiguas de ser. Sin embargo, necesitamos traducir la «relación correcta» a nuestros propios contextos para poder realizar una transición justa hacia un mundo que nutra a las personas, los lugares y el planeta.

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Conclusión: Hacia transiciones justas para las personas y la naturaleza

Nos solidarizamos con las comunidades que afirman que no podemos salir de la crisis climática mediante la minería. El extractivismo, ya sea de combustibles fósiles o de minerales, es incompatible con la justicia, el cuidado y la regeneración. Las soluciones reales residen en las economías pos-extractivas: aquellas basadas en la reciprocidad, la gestión colectiva, los sistemas de conocimiento indígena y la restauración de las tierras y aguas dañadas. Una transición justa, en este sentido, no consiste en mantener el modelo de crecimiento industrial, sino en mantener la vida.

Por último, nos hacemos eco del llamamiento lanzado por las comunidades indígenas y tradicionales de la Amazonía desde Belém do Pará a todas las personas que luchan por la justicia en todo el mundo: «A Resposta Somos Nós» (La respuesta somos nosotros). Poner fin a este sistema destructivo y transformar socioecológicamente nuestras sociedades será una tarea liderada por las comunidades afectadas que están en la primera línea, en el respeto de los Derechos de la Naturaleza y el Buen Vivir, liberándonos de la economía basada en el crecimiento; de lo contrario, estas transiciones no serán ni justas ni sostenibles. Las falsas transiciones son y serán firmemente rechazadas y combatidas. Nuestro «no» es claro, y defendemos el derecho a que se respete. Pero hay muchos «síes», muchas transiciones y muchas transformaciones. Damos espacio para que esos «síes» existan, persistan, se regeneren y prosperen.

Endnotes/Notas al final

1. En 1980, cuando los gobiernos y la industria empezaban a tomar conciencia de los efectos de la quema de combustibles fósiles en nuestro planeta, el consumo anual de carbón, petróleo y gas se situaba en 70 683 TWh (TWh = un teravatio-hora, o un billón de vatios-hora). En 2024, tras 29 conferencias de la COP sobre el clima y tras el Acuerdo de París, el consumo anual no solo se había mantenido, sino que había vuelto a aumentar en la misma cantidad, hasta alcanzar la enorme cifra de 142 421 TWh (Our World In Data).

2. En 2025, la industria minera (incluidos los metales y el carbón) obtuvo unos beneficios globales colosales de 863 000 millones de dólares estadounidenses.

3. Se ha estimado que el 71 % de todas las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero en el periodo 1988-2015 pueden atribuirse a tan solo 100 entidades corporativas y gubernamentales.

4. Esto ha ocurrido, por ejemplo, en los últimos días en la Unión Europea, con la Ley de la Cadena de Suministro (Directiva sobre la Diligencia Debida en materia de Sostenibilidad Corporativa, CSDDD, y Directiva sobre la Presentación de Informes de Sostenibilidad Corporativa, CSRD), apenas unos meses después de su aprobación; en Argentina, con las leyes que amenazaban con derogar la protección de los glaciares para permitir la minería; en Nueva Zelanda, con nuevas leyes de vía rápida que eliminan la necesidad de consultar a las comunidades indígenas y locales, y en muchos otros lugares del mundo.

The only thing standing between wastewater and its new life as a nutrient-rich fertilizer may be streams of tiny, tiny bubbles. 

This is the novel takeaway from a recent study which focuses on an emerging new approach: plasma bubble technology. This technology can purify water, while retaining its crop-benefiting nutrients. What’s more, when researchers tested the resulting purified and concentrated feed on hydroponic garlic crops, they noted that the plants had notably faster and healthier growth.

In general terms, plasma bubble technology works by pumping ionized gas into water, which creates millions of microscopic bubbles that course through the water, reacting in different ways with the ingredients within it. It’s this reaction that is key to its water-purifying qualities: the bubbles have the ability to degrade organic contaminants in the water. But, they’re also able to fix nitrogen, a key agricultural nutrient.

For their study, the University of Alberta researchers sourced wastewater from the malting industry, which produces spirits and beer. This byproduct is rich in organic elements, including nitrogen. But while one of these—nitrogen—accelerates crop growth, the researchers note that the remaining organic load could put growing plants under strain.

So, they tried their plasma bubbles, using a patented version of the technology that they have developed, which uses an electric pump and is fully automated. After pumping the malt wastewater full of tiny bubbles, the researchers found that the water’s organic load had been reduced by 90%, but the ionized bubbles increased the total levels of nitrogen in the water to 53.1 mg per litre through nitrogen fixation, almost double the amount in the control experiments.

 

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Then it was time to put their nutrient-enriched water to the test. In an experimental hydroponic set up, the researchers watered 36 garlic plants, germinated from bulbs. They found that compared to the control plants, the plasma-wastewater treated bulbs germinated sooner, and developed longer roots.

Tests on the plants revealed that the treated garlic bulbs had assimilated more nutrients than the others, confirming the nutrient-rich status of the bubbled water. This showed up in the garlics’ continued growth, with the biomass of treated plants almost doubling that of the others. 

The scientists think their automated system is a good fit for hydroponic crop production, and could work for a range of other plants grown in this setting, they believe.

Like many of the best solutions, theirs dovetails two in one. “The technology performs the dual function of treating the wastewater and converting it into a nutrient solution that supports hydroponic crop production,” the authors say. “In this way, the treated wastewater becomes a valuable agricultural resource instead of a disposal problem.”

Zhang et. al. “Microbubble-enhanced cold plasma activation of food-industry wastewater for valorization and hydroponic crop production.” Green Chemical Engineering. 2026.

Image: cottonbro studio via pexels

Headline News:

• “How Lithuania Became A Wild Card For The EU’s Clean Energy Race” • Lithuania has rapidly become a renewables powerhouse after drastically reducing its reliance on polluting fossil fuels. The country’s domestic consumption of renewable electricity jumped from 15% five years ago to 50% in 2025, thanks to huge investment in solar and wind. [Euronews]

Solar farm (Aiseinau, CC BY-SA 4.0)

• “EU Wind Funding Drives Seven-Fold Returns” • Each €1 of public funding for wind delivers €7 annually to the European economy by 2040, according to a study by Trinomics with DTU Wind. The study said targeted EU support for wind innovation and industrial scale-up would generate major economic and energy security benefits. [reNews]
• “Petrostates Tried To Squash This Historic Climate Ruling. The UN Just Voted To Back It” • The UN General Assembly approved a non-binding resolution endorsing the advisory opinion by the UN’s top court last July that called failure by countries to protect the planet from climate change a violation of international law, a win for low-lying countries. [Euronews]
• “Trump Administration Will Ease Refrigerant Rule In Effort To Address Surging Grocery Costs” • The Trump administration is set to loosen a federal rule that requires grocery stores and air-conditioning companies to reduce greenhouse gases used in cooling equipment, in what officials say is a push to lower grocery costs. [ABC News]
• “Wood Mackenzie Warns On Data Center Power” • Wood Mackenzie warns that the race to power AI is straining US grid development. Data center developers are pursuing collocated generation and flexible interconnection models due to grid build-outs taking 5 to 10 years, but the projects face greater hurdles than widely understood. [reNews]

For more news, please visit geoharvey – Daily News about Energy and Climate Change.

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On Thursday, May 28, thousands of Ontarians will be taking to the rails and converging on Union Station in downtown Toronto. In addition to their...

The post Stopping Ford’s hospital privatization train wreck first appeared on Spring.

Hundreds of scientists in dozens of institutions are embarking on the next phase of the world’s largest coordinated climate-modelling effort.

Climate-modelling groups use supercomputers to run climate models that simulate the physics, chemistry and biology of the Earth’s atmosphere, land and oceans.

These models play a crucial role in helping scientists understand how the climate is responding as greenhouse gases build up in the atmosphere.

For four decades, the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) has guided the work of the climate-modelling community by providing a framework that allows for millions of results to be collected together and compared.  

The resulting projections are used extensively in climate science and policy and underpin the landmark reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Now, the seventh phase of CMIP – CMIP7 – is underway, with more than 30 climate-modelling centres expected to contribute more than five million gigabytes of data  – so much that downloading it using a fast internet connection would take two and a half years.

Here, we look at what is new for CMIP7, including its model experiments, updated emissions scenarios and “assessment fast track” process.

What is CMIP? 

Around the world, climate models are developed by different institutions and groups, known as modelling centres. 

Each model is built differently and, therefore, produces slightly different results. 

To better understand these differences, CMIP coordinates a common set of climate-model experiments.

These are simulations that use the same inputs and conditions, allowing scientists to compare the results and see where models agree or differ. 

The figure below shows the countries that have either produced or published CMIP simulations.

Countries that have contributed modelling or data infrastructure for CMIP. Credit: CMIP

During this time, scientists use new and improved models to run experiments from previous CMIP phases for consistency, as well as new experiments to investigate fresh scientific questions.

These simulations produce a trove of data, in the form of variables – such as temperature, rainfall, winds, sea ice extent and ocean currents. This information helps scientists study past, present and future climate change. 

As scientific understanding and technical capabilities improve, models are refined. As a result, each CMIP phase incorporates higher spatial resolutions, larger ensembles, improved representations of key processes and more efficient model designs.

CMIP7 objectives

Each CMIP phase has an “experimental design” that outlines which climate-model experiments should be run and their technical specifications, including the time period the models should simulate.

The CMIP7 experimental design has several components. 

As in CMIP6, for a modelling centre to contribute, they are asked to produce a suite of experiments that maintain continuity across past and future CMIP phases. 

This suite of experiments is known as the “diagnostic, evaluation and characterisation of klima” (DECK) and is used to understand how their model “behaves” under simple, standard conditions. These experiments are designed and requested directly by CMIP’s scientific governing panel. 

Alongside the DECK, CMIP also incorporates experiments developed by model intercomparison projects (MIPs) run by different research communities. For example, experiments exploring what the climate could look like under different levels of emissions or those that explore how sea ice might have changed between the last two ice-ages.

Currently, CMIP is working with 40 MIPs. These groups investigate specific scientific questions at their own pace, rather than on timelines prescribed by CMIP.

Running a large number of simulations can take modelling centres a long time. To speed up the process, CMIP7 has launched the “assessment fast track”. 

This is a small subset of CMIP7 experiments, drawn from past and present community MIPs, identified through community consultation as being critical for scientific and policy assessments.

Data from the assessment fast track will be used in the reports that will together form the seventh assessment (AR7) of the IPCC. 

It will also be used as an input by other groups that create climate information, including organisations involved in regional downscaling and modelling climate impacts and ice-sheet changes.

The figure below shows the different components of CMIP7. It shows how a subset of CMIP7 experiments will be delivered on an accelerated timeline, while the majority of experiments will be led by MIPs.

The different components of CMIP7. Credit: CMIP CMIP7 experiments

There are three categories of experiments set to take place in CMIP7:

• Historical experiments, which are designed to improve scientific understanding of past climates. Model runs exploring the recent historical period also allow scientists to evaluate the performance of models by checking how well they replicate real-world observations. 
• Prediction and projection experiments, which allow scientists to analyse what different climates could look like under varying levels of greenhouse gas emissions, as well as near-term (10-year) prediction experiments.
• Process understanding experiments, which are designed to better understand specific processes and isolate cause-and-effect relationships. For example, a set of experiments might change the emissions of one greenhouse gas at a time to see how much each pollutant contributes to warming or cooling the climate.

Modelling centres typically produce and publish their data for the historical and projection experiments first. 

CMIP expects the first datasets to be available by this summer, with broader publication recommended by the end of the year, in time to be assessed by IPCC AR7 authors.

Drafting of the reports of AR7 is currently underway. However, countries are yet to agree on the timeline for when they will be published. This presents a challenge for the climate-modelling community, given the difficulties of working with a moving deadline. 

(For more on the ongoing standoff between countries around the timing of publication of the reports, read Carbon Brief’s explainer.)

New emissions scenarios

Scientists use emissions scenarios to simulate the future climate according to how global energy systems and land use might change over the next century.

Crucially, these scenarios – also known as “pathways” – are not forecasts or predictions of the future. 

The group tasked with designing the scenarios for CMIP phases, as well as producing the “input files” for climate models, is the “scenario model intercomparison project”, or ScenarioMIP.

In a new paper, the group has set out the new set of scenarios for CMIP7:

• High (H): Emissions grow to as high as deemed plausibly possible, consistent with a rollback of current climate policies. This scenario will result in strong warming. 
• High-to-low (HL): Emissions rise as in the high scenario at first, but are cut sharply in the second half of the century to reach net-zero by 2100. 
• Medium (M): Emissions consistent with current policies, frozen as of 2025, leading to a moderate level of warming. 
• Medium-to-low (ML): Emissions are slowly reduced, eventually reaching net-zero emissions by the end of the century.
• Low (L): Emissions consistent with likely keeping warming below 2C and not returning to 1.5C before the end of the century.
• Very low (VL): Emissions are cut to keep temperatures “as low as plausible”, according to the paper. This scenario limits warming to close to 1.5C by the end of the century, with limited overshoot beforehand. 
• Low-to-negative (LN): Emissions fall slightly slower than in the VL scenario, with temperatures just rising above 1.5C. Emissions then rapidly drop to negative to bring warming back down.

The figures below show the emissions (left) and the estimated global temperature changes (right) under the seven new scenarios for CMIP7, from the low-to-negative emissions scenario (turquoise) to a high-emissions scenario (brown). 

The greenhouse gas emissions for each of the CMIP7 climate scenarios (left) and the associated estimated average temperature change from 1850-1900 (right) using the FaIR emulator. Source: Adapted from Van Vuuren et al. (2026)

As a set, the ScenarioMIP scenarios “cover plausible outcomes ranging from a high level of climate change (in the case of policy failure) to low levels of climate change resulting from stringent policies”, the paper says.

Compared to the scenarios in CMIP6, the range in future emissions they cover is now narrower, the authors say:

“On the high-end of the range, the CMIP6 high emission levels (quantified by SSP5-8.5) have become implausible, based on trends in the costs of renewables, the emergence of climate policy and recent emission trends…At the low end, many CMIP6 emission trajectories have become inconsistent with observed trends during the 2020-30 period.”

Put simply, progress on climate policies and cheaper renewable technologies means that scenarios of very high emissions have now been ruled out. 

However, this progress has not been sufficient to keep society on track for the Paris Agreement’s 1.5C goal. The paper notes that, “at this point of time, some overshoot of the 1.5C seems unavoidable”.

[The change to the high end of the scenarios has sparked misleading commentary in the media and on social media – even from US president Donald Trump. A Carbon Brief factcheck unpacks the debate.]

Also notable in the new scenarios is the “low-to-negative” pathway, which has the explicit feature of emissions becoming “net-negative”. In other words, through carbon dioxide removal (CDR) techniques, society reaches the point at which more carbon is being taken out of the atmosphere than is being added through greenhouse gas emissions. 

Reaching net-negative emissions is fundamental to “overshoot scenarios”, where global warming passes a target and then is brought back down by large-scale CDR.

Overshoot scenarios allow scientists and policymakers to investigate the impacts of a delay to emissions reductions and better understand how the world might respond to passing a warming target. This includes the question of whether some impacts of climate change, such as ice sheet melt, are reversible. 

CMIP has encouraged modelling centres to run simulations using the “high” and “very low” scenarios first to ensure downstream users of the data – including groups working on regional climate projections (CORDEX), climate impacts modelling (ISIMIP) and ice-sheet modelling (ISMIP) – have enough time to produce their data for IPCC reports.

These two scenarios were selected as they sit at opposite ends of the spectrum of climate outcomes. The high scenario will demonstrate how models behave under high emissions, while the very low scenario will demonstrate how models behave when emissions are rapidly reduced. 

CMIP has recommended that modelling centres then run the “medium” and “high-to-low” scenarios. The remaining scenarios should then follow and no official recommendation has been made yet on their production order.

Other new features 

In addition to the assessment fast track and new scenarios, CMIP7 has a number of other new developments.

Updated data for simulations

Climate models use input datasets to define the set of external drivers – or “forcings” – that have caused the global warming observed so far. These drivers include greenhouse gases, changes to incoming solar radiation and volcanic eruptions.

CMIP recommends modelling groups use the same input datasets, as this makes it easier to compare model results.

In CMIP7, the historical forcing datasets available for modelling groups to use have been improved to better represent real-world changes and extended closer to the present day. The historical simulations will be able to simulate the past climate from 1850 through to the end of 2021, whereas CMIP6 only simulated the past climate through to 2014. 

CMIP is also planning to extend these historical datasets through to 2025 and maybe further throughout the course of CMIP7. 

Emissions-driven simulations 

CMIP7 introduces a new focus on CO2 emissions-driven simulations, providing a more realistic representation of how the climate responds to changes in emissions.

In older generations of climate models, atmospheric levels of CO2 and other greenhouse gas concentrations have been needed as an input to the model. These levels would be produced by running scenarios of CO2 emissions through separate carbon cycle models. The resulting climate-model runs were known as “concentration-driven simulations”. 

However, many of the latest generation of models are now able to run in “emissions-driven mode”. This means that they receive CO2  emissions as an input and the model itself simulates the carbon cycle and the resulting levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. 

This development is important, as climate policies are typically defined in terms of emissions, rather than overall atmospheric concentrations. 

This new development in modelling will enable a more realistic representation of the carbon cycle and a better understanding of how it might change under different levels of warming. 

Enhanced model documentation and evaluation

All CMIP7 models will be required to supply standardised model documentation that ensures consistency across model descriptions and makes it easier for end users to understand the data. 

Additionally, CMIP scientists have developed a new open-access tool that dramatically speeds up the evaluation of climate models. 

This “rapid evaluation framework” allows researchers to compare model outputs with real-world observations, providing immediate insight into model performance. 

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Canada’s auto sector supports more than 500,000 workers and anchors manufacturing communities across Ontario. But as the global car market rapidly electrifies, future jobs and investments will increasingly flow to countries that provide policy...

Even as gas prices continued to rise across the United States, sales of electric vehicles fell in April. That is in contrast to strong growth elsewhere in the world, such as Europe. But American drivers are gravitating toward at least one more efficient powertrain: hybrids. 

Sales of new EVs fell roughly 18 percent from March to April, according to the latest data from Edmunds, an auto research firm. Another company, Cox Automotive, pegged the drop at closer to 6 percent. Either way, experts said it’s clear that high gas prices aren’t leading to a significant shift toward EVs. 

“There was a lot of window shopping,” said Ivan Drury, director of insights at Edmunds, noting that searches for electrified vehicles on the company’s site were strong. “It did not translate to tire-kicking and purchases.” 

Price remains the steepest barrier for most people, said Drury. While electric vehicles can be less expensive to operate over the long-term — especially when gas prices are high — the upfront costs remain significant. The average transaction price for an EV in April was $6,214 higher than for vehicles with internal combustion engines, Cox reported.

“It’s still a cost hurdle,” said Stephanie Brinley, a principal automotive analyst at S&P Global Mobility. “You don’t know how long it’s going to take to get that back.” 

At Thursday’s average gas price of $4.56 per gallon, an EV buyer would have to drive more than 40,000 miles to make up the difference with a car that gets 30 mpg. Savings on maintenance, like oil changes, could accelerate that timeline, but factors such as higher insurance prices and having to install a home charger could make the payback period even longer. If fuel prices fall, the advantage of an EV also shrinks. 

“It’s very difficult for people to wrap their head around, ‘Hey, if I spend this $55,000, I might over time save’,” said Drury. “It requires a bit more math than most people want to go through.” 

The calculus is much simpler for hybrid vehicles, which utilize batteries that can improve fuel economy by 25 to 45 percent without needing to plug in. A Honda CR-V, for example, gets around 29 mpg while the hybrid version gets 37. More and more popular models are only available as hybrids, a strategy that Toyota has perhaps embraced most notably. Last year, it ditched the gas-only version of the Camry sedan. The 2026 RAV4 followed suit.

Overall, Edmunds data shows that sales of hybrids are up 20 percent year-over-year and nearly 50 percent since February, when the U.S.-Iran conflict began. Sales of gas-powered gas are up about 11 percent over those same two months. 

“I think this is going to be a hybrid moment,” said Stephanie Valdez Streaty, director of industry insights at Cox Automotive. “There are a lot of options.”

Used EVs provided another somewhat bright spot, she said. The segment saw a 3 percent increase in sales from March to April and a price premium of only $1,096 over used internal combustion vehicles. Used EVs also sold faster than their used gas-powered counterparts. “They’re really selling efficiently,” said Valdez Streaty, who added that there should be a glut of EVs available throughout the year as leases end. “I don’t think the inventory will be an issue.”

With Iran maintaining its hold over the Strait of Hormuz and summer travel season looming, gas prices appear set to keep climbing — which would only make an EV more appealing. Other parts of the world have seen significant jumps in sales since the conflict began, with Europe experiencing a surge and China setting an export record in April, according to BloombergNEF. 

In the United States, though, it seems that only people already in the market for EVs are making the leap. “Edge-case people,” as Brinley called them. Dramatic pump readings “might nudge them because they were already in that direction,” she said. “But what we’re unlikely to see is a shift in current [internal combustion car] owners just fundamentally making that change simply because of gas prices.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Why hybrids — not EVs — are winning over US consumers on May 22, 2026.

About six years ago, law students at the University of the South Pacific convinced the government of the small island nation of Vanuatu to take the harms wrought by climate change all the way to the International Court of Justice, the world’s highest legal authority. Vanuatu, along with the students, waged a campaign to convince the court that climate change was a human rights issue and that countries have a legal duty to protect the planet for future generations. In 2025, the court sided with them unanimously. In a legally nonbinding advisory opinion, it ruled that the failure of countries to tackle climate change is a “wrongful act” and that other nations harmed by a warming planet may seek reparations. 

Now, the effort has notched another win. On Wednesday, an overwhelming majority of countries in the United Nations voted to adopt a resolution backing the court’s ruling. The historic decision signals the political support behind the court’s finding that countries have a legal responsibility to address climate change, reduce its impact, and offer reparations to those it has harmed. More than 140 countries voted in favor of the resolution. Just eight  — including the United States, Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Russia — voted against (28 countries abstained from the vote).

“This must be a turning point in accountability for damaging the climate,” said Vishal Prasad, director of the Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change and one of the law students who campaigned to take the case to the International Court of Justice, or ICJ. “The journey of this idea from classrooms in the Pacific to The Hague and the United Nations gives us continued hope that when people organize, the world can be moved to act.”

The near-unanimous decision is a strong signal that multilateral cooperation on climate change has not completely unraveled. Over the past year, global unity on reducing greenhouse gas emissions has proven shaky. After Donald Trump’s administration announced it would withdraw from the Paris Agreement, the United States has actively opposed climate action. Last year, it derailed countries that were close to setting a carbon tax on the shipping industry, which is responsible for about 3 percent of the world’s carbon emissions. A deal to regulate the industry’s emissions now seems uncertain. The U.S. has also helped kill a cap on plastics production and berated the International Energy Agency into projecting future energy demand under a scenario that climate action will stall out. 

“The unity and clarity expressed by the vote was striking,” said Nikki Reisch, director of the Center for International Environmental Law’s climate and energy program. Reisch said the resolution puts “political weight behind legal norms” and will help translate the international court’s conclusions into practical action. “It will become another pillar and proof of political backing for action and accountability.”

The Trump administration also mounted a campaign to block the United Nations from adopting the landmark international court ruling. In February, the State Department sent a missive to all consulates and embassies noting that it “strongly opposed” the U.N. resolution and that its adoption “could pose a major threat to U.S. industry.” In remarks ahead of the vote, Tammy Bruce, a former conservative radio host and now deputy representative to the U.N. in New York, said that the resolution is “problematic” and that “the United States continues to have serious legal and policy concerns” about it. 

“The resolution singles out certain groups for preferential treatment and makes alarmist political statements, such as the idea that climate change is an unprecedented challenge of civilizational proportions,” Bruce said. “Such hyperbolic statements are not appropriate in a resolution on an ICJ advisory opinion.” 

Tammy Bruce, deputy representative of the United States to the U.N. in New York, said the resolution is “problematic” and “makes alarmist political statements.” John Lamparski / Getty Images

The resolution reiterates the International Court of Justice’s core findings and calls on countries to implement measures to keep global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) while transitioning away from fossil fuels. It also affirms that nations must fulfill their climate obligations and that those countries harmed by others’ inaction are entitled to seek redress. Finally, the resolution calls on the United Nations’ secretary-general to submit a report next year on ways to comply with the international court’s findings. The resolution, like most U.N. resolutions, is not legally binding; rather, it’s intended to signal political priorities or views.

The U.N. vote comes as countries are cracking down on climate activism and litigation. In Aotearoa New Zealand, the government moved to amend climate laws to limit civil court proceedings against major greenhouse gas emitters for climate-related harm. 

Māori climate advocate Mike Smith is among those whose cases could be affected. Recent reports have found that land theft and colonization have exacerbated the effects of climate change on the Indigenous Māori people, who are more likely to be affected by extreme weather events. Smith is currently pursuing high court proceedings against six of Aotearoa New Zealand’s largest greenhouse gas emitters, and he describes the U.N. vote as a “major shift,” arguing it reflects a changing understanding of climate change not just as environmental damage, but as something with legal consequences. 

“We know as Māori that the islands are part of our journey across the Pacific that’s led us here to Aotearoa,” he said. “New Zealand has a responsibility to stand with Pacific countries like Vanuatu, Kiribati, Tonga, and Tokelau. Not just symbolically, but in supporting stronger legal and international action on climate harm.” 

Although the U.N. vote is a victory for Indigenous activists from the Pacific and beyond, they believe that many countries still must be pushed to uphold their climate obligations. 

“The law is clear that climate action cannot sit on the shelf, it must be turned into action,” Prasad said.

The Indigenous News Alliance contributed reporting to this story.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline In a rare show of global unity, countries adopt landmark climate ruling on May 22, 2026.

Good Food For All!, a European Citizens’ Initiative supported by a coalition of more than 300 civil society organisations across Europe, including ARC2020, is making important strides in amplifying the messages of the food sovereignty and agroecology movements. But the battle for hearts, minds and policies is still far from won.

Despite three decades of COP climate talks and a boom in renewables, global emissions continue to rise, rooted in capitalism’s relentless drive to expand energy use. Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations helps explain why renewable energy has grown without pushing fossil fuels out.